One Last Goodbye: Until the End
by BatmanLoonaticsFan96
Summary: The final chapter in the "One Last Goodbye" sequence
1. Part 1 - Sara

One Last Goodbye: Until the End

Yeah...so remember how I said I'd definitely get this up before the end of March? Well, that was before I realized just how much I had to write and then had a few stints of writer's block, a brief stomach flu, several school projects, a couple family situations, and some technical difficulties. Hopefully, the sheer length of this makes up for that. ...speaking of which, I apologize for the length. I never actually intended it to be this long, but the story just took over. I hope you still enjoy it and thank you for reading. :)

Part 1 – Sara Shepard

 _"You really should be resting," he'd said. I knew it was true (my injuries confirmed it), but how was I supposed to get any kind of sleep when all I wanted was to fall into him again? Not that my current condition allowed that, but I still wanted it. The way he touched me as he gently pushed my hair back from my eyes, leaving my gaze locked on his, just made that desire even stronger. I was lying there in a medical bed, my mind ringing with how he called me "_ kalwen _"—the deepest connection a turian could make, the way he explained it. But even more than I wanted to get back on my feet, I wanted to stay here with him like this for as long as time allowed._

 _The look in his eyes changed when he saw me give off a small smirk at the use of the turian word (_ Never knew that _turians_ had such strong terms of affection, but I guess that's universal. _), but I couldn't tell why or how until he started talking again: "I don't know what's going to happen now. But I know that I can't live without you anymore. I don't just love you. I need you. And I want to be with you every second from here on out. No matter what it takes."_

 _Between my injuries and the large doses of medication I'd been given while I was semi-unconscious, my mind was moving pretty slowly. For a few seconds, I was simply enjoying the sound of his voice. Then the words themselves reached me and the meaning started to come through. So it took me a moment to realize that there was more to those words than just the obvious confession of love I'd grown used to since my return. Just to be sure, I forced myself upright enough to better meet his gaze when I asked for confirmation: "…are you asking me to marry you?"_

 _He actually seemed stunned for a second or two, like he hadn't realized himself that it was what he was asking until I said so. But then he considered it and gradually started to brighten as he knew for certain. "…yeah. I guess I am."_

 _I found myself smiling. I might not have known it all along, but I had been dreaming of this moment for a while. Of course, like I said, my mind was kind of hazy and in no position to be giving a life-changing answer, so… "No."_

 _He was more in shock at that moment than I've ever seen him. "'No'?!"_

 _"Ask me again when I'm not hopped up on medi-gel and painkillers," I sighed as I lay back down._

 _That made him understand. In response, he let off a small laugh. "Alright. I can wait."_

 _I smiled again as I turned back onto my side. "Good." For a moment, I kept my eyes on him. I took in every aspect of the one man I loved most in the entire galaxy. Then I let my eyes drift shut and kept the image in my mind. I felt his touch on my face again, once more sliding my hair away from it, and I smiled. But then I felt him pull away and heard him get up to leave. I quickly reached out, grabbing him by the arm as tightly as I dared to. "I didn't say you could leave, Vakarian."_

 _It took him a few seconds, but he complied, instantly crawling into the bed I was essentially trapped in. Once he was beside me, I wrapped my arms around him, leaning into him as he returned the embrace. "Anything to help you sleep better."_

 _In response to that, I let out a light smile and led him to bring me closer to him. "The nightmares are gone. I just need you here."_

 _That statement seemed to make everything right with the world again for him, if the way he held me even tighter (though, thankfully, not too tightly) was anything to go by. I responded in kind, though not as vigorously as I would've liked to._

 _For a moment, I lost myself in him again. The way we were holding each other close was enough to make me forget everything else, especially with my mind already clouded by painkillers. But as he filled my senses, a thought struck me from amidst the fog. "It's funny," I told him, "Before we went back to Earth, the day the war ended…you said 'it's time we brought you home.'" I repositioned, nestling myself against him as I gave off a soft smile he couldn't see. "…I was on the Normandy…I was with you…I already was home." I felt his reaction without seeing it in his eyes like I usually did. I felt the way he took comfort in the thought, as if it was exactly what he thought about me all along, too. It was enough to draw me back so I could kiss his scars again before really lying down here, still huddled against him. "I love you, Garrus," I whispered to him as I laid there, the deepest, most undeniable truth I knew._

 _He stayed in the silence for a moment, his hand pressed to my back where he could feel my heartbeat. Then his hand moved around to my face and he pulled me just enough out of my current position to kiss me. I reveled in it for as long as I could—which was both just a little too long for my lungs to take and_ way _too short for my heart to get by on—before he let me back into my place against him and whispered into my ear in response: "I love you, Sara."_

 _Without thinking, I took his hand in mine and placed both in what little space remained between our parallel heartbeats, the perfect place for each of us to feel the other's. Once I was convinced I was as close to him as I could take, I closed my eyes and lost myself in the rhythm of his heart. Sleep took hold of me within seconds._

 _I woke up slowly, like usual. I found him still next to me, in almost the exact same position I left him in when I fell asleep. Just the sight of him there was enough to make me smile again. "Still here?"_

 _He smiled back, gently squeezing the hand still entwined in his. "Wouldn't dream of letting you wake up alone."_

 _I took a moment to openly display my utter joy before bringing myself to get up._

 _"Are you back yet?"_

 _As much as I wanted to keep hold of his hand for as long as possible, I let go—keeping my own in the same position for_ hours _was not good on it and I had to stretch it out. Once I was satisfied with the results and had confirmed that my mind was clearing, evidence the meds were wearing off, I sighed and nodded. "Yeah."_

 _He simply kept his eyes on me in silence. After a moment, I realized why: he didn't need to say anything. I knew what he was trying to ask._

 _Now that I was thinking clearly, I knew so absolutely what to tell him that I smiled brighter than I had since the day he found me on Omega. "…yes. The answer is yes."_

I never get tired of looking back on that moment. It was one of the greatest of my life. Almost all of which were with him. Even now, as I look out at the sky outside my window, the stars I love are overshadowed by the memories. But, tonight, it's not just because of the memories themselves.

…five years. It's been five years since we had people hunting us down. It was five years ago today that the memory I'm clinging to took place. One week later, I was back on my feet. Garrus and I spent the next few days with me showing him around Earth like we talked about the day before the final battle with the Shadows. After some time on the _Normandy_ , we went back to Palaven to tell his family in person about our newfound plans. …I won't go into detail about the mixed reaction the news received. Less than a year later, we were married on the Citadel. We spent the next two years either on the _Normandy_ or in our apartment on the Silversun Strip. Then the time came to finally cash in on the plans we made the first time we went to London, the day the Reaper War ended.

And that's where I am now: the room we share in our house on a garden world that has yet to be truly settled—out of the way, a wonderful view of the stars, and, just like we planned, warm and tropical.

The thought brings a smile to me. That we're finally living the life we dreamed of…it's more than I could've asked for. Only now do I realize I was never truly happy until he came into my life. And that happiness reached its pinnacle the day I left the last of my life without him behind me—the day we had the first ever human-turian wedding. Over the next few months, all our old friends had to get used to calling me by my first name like he does, seeing as how my days as Commander Shepard were now over with. But, as much as we stay in contact, they adjusted better than I thought they would. In fact, that's what I'm doing now: going through my omni-tool, checking on each of them.

Liara is still active as the Shadow Broker, operating from a new base on Thessia. Ironically, one of her best agents is now the ex-Shadow Jethran Tallus, who just two years ago (after three years of constant surveillance with no sign of approaching trouble in the form of newly-recruited assassins) earned enough of her trust to receive the title. Her work is actually doing some good out there. Guess I couldn't think of a better Broker if I tried.

Tali remains the faithful admiral, watching over Rannoch to ensure her people and the geth are still getting along and that no other trouble comes their way. So far, nothing bad has happened on that front; the geth help the quarians restore their home-world with every passing day and Tali claims they're even developing some organic traits alongside typical curiosity from spending time with the quarians, especially the younger ones—win-win, you could say. Things are going so well in her new home that she spent our last video call without her mask on. She really is beautiful.

Ashley and James are both on active duty with the Alliance, likely to stay that way for even longer than I did. They seem to keep close together more than necessary (which, though neither will admit it, is probably because they both miss the days they both spent with the team), but that's abated every time Ashley has to work as Spectre and James has to work as an N7. They're both good at what they do. And both thankfully clear of having to carry both titles at once.

Wrex has yet to let anything disrupt his place as head of the krogan alongside Eve—sorry, Bakara. Last I heard, the population on Tuchanka was increasing rapidly. Since none of them have shown any intent to carry out a new Rebellion, the Council might actually cave soon to give them the colony world they've been begging for since the Reaper War ended. I also heard that Wrex is doing a pretty good job leading them all. His skills as a father…yeah, I'm not touching that one.

Miranda stays close to Oriana, making sure she gets to live her life safe and happy. No Cerberus remains have come out in the last four years, leading her to believe we're finally clear on that front, and her efforts quickly shifted to monitoring for any silent Shadow cells; she found one two years ago and took it out without any difficulty, but the fact that she hasn't found any others insinuates they're out of the picture for good, as well. Leaving her free to focus on her sister and helping the Alliance.

Jacob has been focused on his wife and child since before I came back. He really is a better father than his own was. Bryn is still working as an Alliance scientist, her team consisting of all the ex-Cerberus researchers she defected with during the war, and he still works at her side, guarding their lab. As far as I can tell, they've been living the life they always wanted, too. Good.

Jack has kept up her work tutoring the Alliance's biotic trainees, especially since Grissom Academy got back up and running about three months after London. She can complain all she wants about how everyone sees her as "dependable" now and even keep up the putdowns at her kids' expense, but it's obvious how much she cares about them and enjoys the life she's made. Seems to me she's finally found her place in the galaxy.

Grunt has been _running_ Aralakh Company, if I understand correctly. As the best warrior in Clan Urdnot, a title he's earned more than once, he's the best leader the commando group has had in a long time. The fact that he's tank-bred seems to be almost forgotten. He's gotten the respect he deserves, at least. And he's found where he belongs.

Samara stays ever the watchful Justicar. Though she has made a point in recent years of saying she might not have much time left, any threat of imminent mortality certainly hasn't slowed her down. She's going as strong as ever, still fighting the good fight, righting wrongs all over asari space. She also seems to be keeping up a good relationship with Falere. I'm happy for that.

EDI and Joker are still going strong, unsurprisingly. They have to stay close to the _Normandy_ , for obvious reasons, so they've made it their job to ensure no harm comes to the ship I call home in my absence. The job isn't relatively hard, considering the Alliance isn't reassigning it any time soon (either out of respect for me or because Joker told Admiral Hackett I'm alive and he resolved to leave it for me), but it's still nice to know that the best pilot in the galaxy and his AI girlfriend—two of the best friends I could ask for—are looking out for what I once held most dear.

I close down my omni-tool. They're all still doing fine for now. I just needed to know that. If there's anyone in the galaxy I could trust to survive whatever comes their way, it'd be the 12 of them, so I can count on none of them dying any time soon. But I still miss them. Maybe they know that and it's why they typically come over on some important day so we can be together like old times. Sometimes, EDI and Joker even go so far as to highjack the _Normandy_ for a few hours so we can have "one last ride." It never does feel like the last one. I always know we'll be going back to that ship again eventually.

I look out the window again, like I always looked out the viewing glass over my bed in the captain's cabin of the _Normandy_. It's different watching the stars from here. Not just because they're standing still instead of flying past at light speeds, but because…well, they seem farther away. I'm so used to being able to just bring us close to each of them, and now all I can do is watch them. But I don't feel trapped. I actually feel free. Because this is what it's like for people who aren't constantly fighting for their lives. This is what it's like to—

Those thoughts are cut off. For a split second, I see flashes of Reaper code replace my view of the world around me. I jump slightly from the jolt it brings, but I don't shock back and clutch my head in a brief onslaught of pain. The attacks—sorry, the signals from the Reapers—are finally dying down. If Liara and EDI's original predictions were accurate (which they probably are, considering it's Liara and EDI I'm talking about), this time next year, I might not even notice them happening anymore. External observations from Garrus confirm the flash in my eyes isn't going away, but it is fading in intensity. I'd be lying if I said some part of me didn't wish it would all disappear, that this last link to the Reapers would be severed once and for all, but I stopped caring a long time ago. I can't change what happened (and I probably wouldn't even if I could) and the reminder of it all I've been left carrying is a small price to pay for what it's brought me.

Then I hear the door open behind me. "Stargazing again?"

I smile at the sound of that voice. _It's brought me him._ "Reminds me of the old days."

He steps up behind me, gently pulling my hair over my shoulder so he can place his hand on it as he moves closer to me. "Didn't we come out here to put the old days behind us?"

I tilt my head to the side so I can place my hand over his. "Just because you keep moving forward doesn't mean you should stop looking back."

"Fair enough." As I turn to look back at him, starry blue eyes look back at me, still bright and piercing as ever. His scars have faded slightly over the years, but it's pretty clear they might never be gone completely. Not that I'm complaining.

Whether I smile at the thought or just at the sight of him, I couldn't tell. Either way, I reach over to kiss his scars, placing my free hand against them as I pull away. "Don't worry. I've never been happier than these last few years with you."

He smirks. "Glad to know my romantic skills have improved."

"Immensely." I take a moment to enjoy the sound of his laugh in response. Then I lay my head against his, letting the hand not resting on my shoulder wrap around my waist and pull me closer to him. I lean into him, closing my eyes to take it in.

"Long day?" he asks, sighing softly as if it has been for him.

"Not really. I just never get tired of this."

"Well, I think we could do it better on the bed."

"No arguments." So I pull away from him, still holding his hand, and step across the room to it. Once we've laid down, he wraps his arms around me completely, holding me close to him as I lean into him again. "Oh, yeah, this is much better."

He simply smiles, laying his head against mine again.

As I stay close to him, I reach one hand up and press it against his chest, feeling his heart beating with mine. For a moment, I take in the sensation of the pulsating rhythm. Then I let my hand slide up to his scars and gently trace them. I don't even look when I do. Even when he moves back just enough to meet my eyes, I never once let my gaze drift from his. Not until I press myself against him completely. My hand only now stops its motions, bringing him deeper into the kiss instead. But when I do pull away, I don't stop to catch my breath. I turn to kissing his scars instead. Not the gentle, affectionate kind I usually do, either, but with the same fiery passion I employed in the previous embrace.

Garrus almost turns with the pressure to put me on top of him before he brings himself to push me off. "Sara…" He looks at me lovingly, carefully brushing my fallen red hair away from my face. "…pace yourself, alright?"

I just look at him, somewhere between longing and contentment. "I can't help it." I lay myself down beside him again and whisper into his ear "My heart is yours as yours is mine"—the turian words he taught me that we gave to each other at our wedding. I use the next few seconds to enjoy his delighted reaction before returning to my own language. "I always loved you and I always will. Nothing can change that now. …but everything's so… _perfect_ …there are some days I can't help worrying that this is a dream…and, one day, I'll have to wake up."

He looks at me as if he feels the same way. Then he holds me close again, kisses me just long enough to bring my smile back, and tells me just what I need to hear: "If you do wake up…I'll still be right next to you."

I cling to the words, letting my smile brighten before falling into him again. It's true. He's always been here for me when I needed him, and even when something pulled us apart, we always found each other again. What we have is unbreakable. I have no reason in the galaxy to worry. Not anymore.

Not for the last five years.

For a while, we lay here together, wrapped up in each other, our hearts beating together again. Then, at some point, he falls asleep. Even as I softly brush my fingers against his scars again, though, I simply look up at the ceiling. Well, sort of ceiling. I've always been most comfortable sleeping under the stars, so Garrus replaced the ceiling of this room with a viewing glass about a week after we moved in. I smile at the sight of the distant lights overhead, once again remembering a time when we flew past them.

 _Garrus was still sitting beside me in the med bay when the door opened. I didn't bother bringing myself to turn away from the turian (both because I didn't want to and because my injuries made it a little more difficult) so I simply inclined my head to look over my shoulder at it._

 _"Well," Wrex said as he walked in, the rest of the squad just behind, "we need to be heading out soon. Thought we'd drop in to tell you 'so long.'"_

 _I groaned. "And here I was hoping we might actually get some time for ourselves."_

 _"It's not as if we will never see each other again," Liara pointed out._

Well, of course not, _I found myself thinking fondly,_ You'll all be coming to the wedding. _The thought made me realize that we needed to tell them there was actually going to_ be _a wedding. So I turned to look at Garrus. "We should probably tell them now, shouldn't we?"_

 _"Can't think of any reason not to," he shrugged._

 _Tali looked at us curiously, a gesture several of the others reflected. "Tell us what?"_

 _I looked at Garrus for a moment, but he simply gestured for me to go ahead. So, clinging to his hand, I brought myself to sit up again and faced the 11 closest friends we had. "…we're getting married."_

 _Needless to say, the announcement got some mixed reactions. Liara and Tali were both pretty much overjoyed, Samara and EDI seemed unsurprised but pleased, and Wrex and Grunt and Jack were all…well, I couldn't tell what they were thinking, but I'd say it was along the lines of "Oh, great, as if it wasn't bad enough already."_

 _"Shepard, that's wonderful!" Liara said as she hugged me._

 _"No, it's not," James remarked, "We have to stop calling her 'Shepard' now."_

 _"We can still call her 'Commander,'" Ashley pointed out, "I'm sure we'll adjust."_

 _"In all my years," Samara spoke as she stepped over, "I have never known two people to be closer. Or to endure more together. This was meant to be."_

 _"Wow," I commented to Garrus, "we've got the encouragement of the oldest one here. That's gotta be a good sign."_

 _"It's not like there's gonna be any talking you out of it," Jack shook her head at us, "Toss you two onto opposite sides of the galaxy and you'd be tumbling over each other again inside of five hours."_

 _"…yeah, that's an image I didn't need in my head," Jacob sighed._

 _"And one more reason to regret ever letting Irana onto the ship," I groaned._

 _"Please, someone was gonna start this sooner or later," Garrus added._

 _"Well, I guess Joker and EDI were already headed there."_

 _"Jeff has made several comments about the nature of your relationship," EDI stated, "I believe the most recent was 'How do they—?'"_

 _"EDI!" I quickly cut her off, "…shut up."_

 _A few minutes later, Miranda, Jacob, Jack, Grunt, Wrex, and Samara had already said their goodbyes and headed out, promising at my insistence to stay in touch when they got the chance. Tali, however, decided to wait for a quarian transport to pick her up and take her to Rannoch instead of going through a spaceport. Much as she tried to deny it, her reasoning was obvious: she wanted to spend a few more hours on her home-ship. No matter how much of a home she made for herself on Rannoch, she would always be Tali'Zorah vas Normandy._

 _When those few hours were up, Tali came back to the med bay. "The quarian transport is almost here. I should be getting ready to leave."_

 _I gave her a smile as she stepped over. "We're gonna miss you, Tali."_

 _"I know. I'll miss you, too. Don't worry, I'll stay in contact. Hopefully, this time, without any messages about people trying to kill us."_

 _"Yeah. I'm gonna be holding you to that."_

 _Garrus smirked. Then he stepped over to Tali. Before he could say or do anything, though, she hugged him. He took a second before smiling and hugging her back. "Be careful out there, alright?"_

 _"_ Me _?" she countered as she stepped back, "_ I _should be saying that to_ you _. You're the one got hit in the face by a gunship."_

 _"And you're the one who got pinned in a data room by a geth colossus."_

 _"…I see your point." She then looked my way. "Would it bother you if I had a moment alone with your girlfriend? Oh, sorry. Fiancé."_

 _He simply looked between us both for a second. "No. I'll just give you two a minute." With that, he left the med bay for the first time since I was brought into it._

 _Tali then turned to me, casually stepping over. "Are you alright?"_

 _"Better than I was when I got into this bed…" I answered dryly. Most of my injuries I could just shrug off with enough time, but that hit to the spine wouldn't rest and the painkillers were already starting to wear off again. The fact that I was sitting right now instead of lying down wasn't exactly helping, but I could wait to get back on my back after Tali had left and Garrus had returned. …OK, that could be misinterpreted, so I'm glad I didn't say that out loud._

 _Tali sighed and sat down next to me. "Well. You sure know how to show us a good time. If with a painful aftermath."_

 _"That's pretty much typical for a shore leave with us, isn't it?"_

 _She scoffed. "At least there weren't any clones and pirates this time."_

 _I smirked, leaning back against the wall. "So why'd you want to talk to me alone?"_

 _She glanced back at the door, as if to make sure Garrus wasn't spying on us. "Listen, Shepard. I care about you both. I want what's best for you. You're sure this is it?"_

 _I thought of it. Of giving my entire life to Garrus. I couldn't imagine doing anything less with him and I couldn't bear the thought of a life without him. No, this was the only option now. The only one I would ever want to face, anyway. So I smiled and nodded. "Yes. I know it is."_

 _Tali smiled. I think. "Good. That's what I thought. Just making sure." She then placed her hand on my shoulder, gently as if she was afraid it'd hurt me (can't blame her for thinking it). "But, She—" She cut herself off. "…_ Sara _…" I was surprisingly happy to hear her accented voice giving out my first name. If anyone besides Garrus got to do it, I was glad it was her. "…take care of him. Alright?"_

 _That was the plan. I smiled again, showing her as much. "I will."_

 _This time, I was certain she was smiling back. Especially when she hugged me. "I'll see you later…Captain."_

 _I hugged her back gladly. "See you later…Tali'Zorah vas Normandy."_

 _With that, she stepped out._

 _Five seconds after she'd left, Garrus came back. "What was that about?"_

 _"Just playing the concerned best friend. I've got a few of them."_

 _He smirked before stepping back over to take my side on the bed again. "Then it's my turn to play the concerned boyfriend. Are you feeling any better?"_

 _"With you here? Always." Unfortunately, shortly after I'd said so, a surge of pain flashed through my spine, drawing out a sharp gasp. I quickly caught my breath, though not before he'd put his arm around me as if he was preparing to make sure my heart wasn't stopping. "…thankfully, medical science has advanced far enough that I don't have to worry about pulling a Barbara Gordon."_

 _He sighed and turned on his omni-tool, typing what I'd said into it. Apparently, at some time just before Omega-4, he'd gotten tired of me using references he didn't understand and telling him "I'll explain later" and had started keeping a list, which he then made sure to regularly go over with me during the war and ever since my return._

 _"Right. Sorry. Well, I don't exactly have much else to do in here, so if you wanna clear that out, just say the word."_

 _"Not right now. The meds are wearing off, aren't they?"_

 _"Believe me, the last thing I need is to get pumped full of more. Just give me a distraction."_

 _He looked at me in reluctance for a second. "Alright." So he let me lean against him and pulled up the list. "So…"_

 _"A redhead who took a bullet to the spine and ended up in a wheelchair. Next."_

 _We stayed in that position as we kept it up. After a few minutes, another flash of pain, seemingly through my whole body this time, forced me to lie down, but he simply laid down beside me and listened to my request to keep going anyway._

 _It wasn't long before Dr. Chakwas came in to check on me. Seemed like the first thing she did was confirm that the next dose of the painkillers actually did have to be administered. Needless to say, I put up a fight. Though my argument was far undermined when the last flare of pain came over me, almost appearing to be the strongest yet._

 _Garrus, naturally, instantly took hold of my arm. If I didn't know any better, I'd say he was ready to hold me down and force me to take it himself. "I'm not gonna sit back and watch this. Do us both a favor and get it over with." He wasn't relenting. That much was obvious. There was more than one night during the war—during the days before Omega-4, too—when EDI had to call him in to convince me to get some sleep because I was running myself ragged and wouldn't listen to anyone else. I was seeing the same methods at work now. Added to by the fact that he'd be at my side the whole time for this one. And for the rest of my life._

 _So I sighed and told the doctor to go ahead. The meds drew out the drowsiness almost instantly this time, forcing me to fall back on the bed completely. But I still brought myself to move entirely to one side of it, leaving room for Garrus to join me. He gladly complied, wrapping his arms around me and letting me nestle against him. I didn't fall asleep that time; as sleep took its hold, I fell into him._

As the stars gleam overhead, I find I'm in the same position now that he was in then, with my partner wrapped around me fast asleep. Knowing this, I look at him, letting my fingers brush softly against his scars. The scars that show him as the greatest soldier I've ever known, one who fought to bring justice no matter the consequences and nearly paid for it with his life. There are similar ones in his left side and right shoulder—wounds he took at the Shadows' hands to save _me_. _That's my Archangel._ Content with the knowledge that he loves me as much as I love him, I close my eyes and lay my head back on the pillow. And as sleep comes over me tonight, Garrus Vakarian fills my thoughts.

 _I step out as the elevator opens and find a beautiful chamber on the other side. The walkway I step across is lined by trees with pink leaves, something I definitely never saw on Earth. When Ashley and Kaidan are both admiring the view, I take the chance to reach out and silently pull out one of the leaves, looking it over in amazement. I don't have time to truly examine it, though, before Ashley and Kaidan turn back to me, forcing me to hide it in my pack to pull out later. I then get back to business and start towards the small stairway leading up to the next level of the chamber, where the walkways circle around the fountain. As I start up the stairs, I take a second to glance forward and see several more ahead, causing me to inwardly ponder whether this is supposed to be symbolic ("The Council is above us all."). I stop moving entirely, though, when I hear someone talking._

 _"Saren's hiding something! Give me more time! Stall them!"_

 _Curious as can be, I turn to see where the voice is coming from, finding two turians directly ahead of us._

 _"Stall the Council?" the second scoffs, "Don't be ridiculous! Your investigation is over, Garrus."_

 _As the turian walks away, leaving the first behind, I step closer. If_ this _turian has his suspicions about Saren, he might just be someone I'd want to know._

 _The turian in question turns around then. He stops moving when he sees me here. I take the opportunity to look him over. I bypass the features I recognize as typically turian and focus on those unique to him—the silvery coloring to his plates, the blue markings across them, but his icy blue eyes, bright like stars, most of all. I'm about ready to put together a word that fits him when he addresses me directly: "Commander Shepard? Garrus Vakarian. I was the officer in charge of the C-Sec investigation into Saren."_

 _"Come across anything I should know about?" I ask him._

 _"Saren's a Spectre," he answers, plainly upset, "Most of his activities are classified. I couldn't find anything solid. But I know he's up to something. Like you humans say, I feel it in my gut."_

 _Before I can continue the conversation, Kaidan steps in. "I think the Council's ready for us, Commander."_

 _"Good luck, Shepard," Garrus comments as we move past him, "Maybe they'll listen to you."_

 _Except they don't. Three minutes later, we come out of the hearing in the same position we entered it. No action taken. Mission failure. If we don't find some way to show the Council what Saren's been up to, he'll get away and cause who-knows-how-much damage. When Kaidan suggests we make contact with Garrus and help him finish the investigation that was cut short, I agree wholeheartedly. So the next hour is spent tracking him down. When we finally reach the end of the trail, we step into the med clinic to find a group of thugs threatening the doctor. I'm almost ready to make a move when someone suddenly jumps out and fires their gun. The bullet flies right behind the doctor's head and into the skull of the thug holding her. As the fight breaks out, I chance a look at who took the shot._

 _Garrus Vakarian stands there with a gun in his hand, pulling the doctor back behind cover to give me, Kaidan, and Ashley room for the firefight. Once it's clear, he makes sure to check on her before asking what happened. The story makes it clear what we have to do next: storm Chora's Den and find the quarian carrying the data to implicate Saren._

 _"This is your show, Shepard," Garrus says once we have our plan in place, "But I want to bring down Saren just as much as you do. I'm coming with you."_

 _His insistence certainly strikes me. I haven't known many turians in my time. The first time I ever heard about them, I was barely four years old, scrounging to survive and hearing that the first contact we ever made with an alien race resulted in them attacking us. Hearing the word "turian" after that always brought a brief flash of suspicion. I'd gotten over it by the time I was active duty for the Alliance and have now come to see all alien races as equals in some capacity. But for this man I just met to beg me to come take down one of the greatest Spectres in the galaxy, who just so happens to be a member of his own race, well… "You're a turian," I finally point out, "Why do you wanna bring him down?"_

 _"I couldn't find the proof I needed in my investigation," he answers fervently, "but I knew what was really going on. Saren is a traitor to the Council and a disgrace to my people!"_

 _Well. Can't argue with that. He's clearly not backing down and I've seen what he can do. Skilled and determined, instincts good enough to figure out Saren even without witnessing Eden Prime firsthand…yeah. We could definitely use his help. Finally, I smile and agree: "Welcome aboard, Garrus."_

 _I don't regret the decision. As the mission continues over the following weeks, I take any chance I can to get to know my crew and Garrus is no exception. Over time, I grow to enjoy my conversations with him, leaning against the Mako as he stands practically at attention. It takes a while before he starts to seem more at ease around me. In fact, he doesn't at all until after we apprehend Dr. Saleon. Once that mission is over, he seems less tense and cynical, willing to actually unwind at all. That's when we start to really get to know each other._

 _It's only after Virmire, though, that I begin to consider us friends._

 _I sit on the bed in my cabin, twisting the leaf I took from the Council chambers between my fingers. I look at the cherry blossom-colored leaf,_ _beginning to wither by now,_ _and think back to when I took it. When Kaidan and Ashley were enjoying the view. I sigh sadly as I lower the leaf, just barely keeping myself from letting it fall to the floor._

 _Kaidan was my friend. He'd made it pretty clear that he might have taken an interest in being more than that, but I pushed him away the second he started getting too close. Akuze had made sure I knew what was at stake if we made even one mistake and getting that close with a squad-mate was the biggest emotional distraction I could find. No, I wasn't interested. Luckily, he understood. Just like he understood when I made the call to go back for Ash instead of him. Ashley was my friend, too, and I couldn't leave her behind, but leaving Kaidan… I'll never be able to put this one behind me. Not for good. I couldn't put Akuze behind me either._

 _Suddenly, someone knocks on my door. I don't even look away from the leaf between my fingers after telling them to come in. Not until they step up to me. "Are you alright, Shepard?"_

 _I turn to see who it is and find Garrus standing there. I smirk. "You actually came to check on me?"_

 _"You came straight here after the debriefing and haven't left since," he says, taking a seat across from me._

 _"…I needed some time alone."_

 _"It's been three hours."_

… _oh. I sigh, setting the leaf aside and willing myself to face him. "…I'm not someone you could say takes loss very well. Especially not when it's one of my own team."_

 _He looks at me with sympathy, but his piercing gaze is strong as ever. "It wasn't your fault."_

 _I don't look at him, though. I keep my eyes on the leaf I placed on my bed. "…I know…but I made the call, so…it kind of_ feels _like it was."_

 _He understands that. "…well…if you need to talk to someone, I'm here." With that, he starts to leave the room._

 _As he does, I suddenly realize something. "Wait." I turn to face him as he stops walking and turns back to me. "…what did you call me?"_

 _He looks at me almost as if in confusion. "Shepard."_

 _Yeah, that's what I thought. I find myself smiling at this. "You've always just called me 'Commander.'"_

 _He catches on then. "Right. I…well, out of respect—"_

 _"No, no, I understand that. Totally get it. It's just…" I take a second to consider how to say this, but I don't have to. "…I'm glad we're friends, Garrus."_

 _He smiles in response. "Thanks, Shepard." Then he leaves the room._

 _He's a really good friend, too. The kind that would follow me after stealing the_ Normandy _, dropping blind onto Ilos, and rushing through the Conduit under geth fire. Once Sovereign is defeated, we're prepared to face anything. But when the Council says there are no immediate threats to attend to and sends the_ Normandy _off to eradicate the remaining geth resistance and investigate possible incursions in the Terminus Systems while they decide who's going to take humanity's Council seat, Garrus waits until we're at the entrance to the docking bay to tell me that he's staying._

 _"You can handle it without me from here," he says, "And it's time I went back to C-Sec. You were right, I can actually do some good there."_

 _"Well, I'm glad to hear it," I say, "but…kind of sad to see you go."_

 _"Wrex and Tali are staying back, too, remember?"_

 _"Yeah, but…" I sigh. I can't explain why I'd be just a little bit more upset to lose Garrus than to lose the krogan and quarian I consider my friends as much as him. I just know that the_ Normandy _will seem a little bit emptier without his constant presence in the cargo bay. "…just promise you'll stay in touch, alright? And be careful out there."_

 _"Be careful? I just helped you fight off a Reaper attack on the Citadel. I'm pretty sure anything else is going to seem like nothing by comparison."_

 _I let off a small laugh. "Point taken."_

 _He gives me one last smile before he starts to go. "Well…see you around, Shepard."_

 _To his credit, he does make an effort to stay in contact. I receive four calls from him over the next few weeks. It's nice to hear from him. But we don't actually get to see each other again. Not before the_ Normandy _goes by Alchera…and is shot down. I do everything I can to evacuate the ship, but Joker I have to pull out myself. And as I get him to the last escape shuttle, the final assault strikes the ship. He makes it out. I don't. The ship—_ my ship _—falling apart around me is the last thing I see before I run out of air._

 _I wake up two years later. Everything has changed since I've been MIA. Or KIA, depending on who you ask. Getting a new ship with Joker at the helm starts to bring me back around. But it's not until we track down a vigilante named Archangel that I start to feel like myself again. Fighting through the first wave of mercs to get to him is the easy part. Quickly, I lead Miranda and Jacob to the top floor and find him looking over the bridge through the scope of a sniper rifle._

 _I lower my gun and take a step closer to him. "Archangel?"_

 _He signals briefly to wait a second. When I comply, he keeps his aim on the bridge. A few seconds later, the last merc peers around his cover and the next bullet from the vigilante's rifle flies right through his skull. The turian then steps aside and turns to face us, pulling off his helmet and placing it aside. As he sits down on the nearby crates, casually leaning over his rifle, I see who he truly is. "Shepard," his voice fills my hearing for the first time after two years of silence, "I thought you were dead."_

 _I can't explain the sheer joy that overwhelms me in that moment. All I know is that one of the few people in this large, lonely galaxy I actually care about is alive and here. "Garrus! What are you doing here?"_

 _"Just keeping my skills sharp," he comments, "Little target practice."_

 _I smirk. Yup, that's Garrus. "You OK?"_

 _"Been better, but it sure is good to see a friendly face."_

 _Turns out Garrus is a real troublemaker without me around to keep him in check. In the aftermath of my death and the Council's attempts to cover up the Reapers' impending invasion, Garrus traded his place at C-Sec for a stint as a vigilante on the most lawless station in the galaxy, which is why three of the biggest mercenary groups in the galaxy are currently attempting to kill him. "Attempting" being the operative word. Fighting through this assault with him just feels right. He seems to be back to his old self with me at his side and his favorite rifle in his hands, too. The more mercs we take down, the more I let the hope through that this mission might end up just like old times after all._

 _Hope that's dashed entirely the minute the gunship comes back to the base. Seeing Garrus get hit causes a painful burst in my heart that I can't describe. All I know is that the closest friend I have in the entire galaxy right now is lying on the floor, unconscious and losing too much blood to survive for very long. And that batarian in the gunship cockpit is responsible. Leaving Miranda and Jacob to handle whatever mercs come while I'm distracted, I start unleashing everything I can on that gunship. Every second it's not firing at me while my shields are down, I plow through its defenses, hoping to either break open the cockpit and shoot the pilot or take out the engines entirely. Finally, when I'm about ready to rush over, jump out the window, and start tearing my way in, one final shot breaks through and hits the pilot. I then take great pleasure in watching the ship come crashing down outside._

 _With nothing to distract me anymore, I rush over to Garrus' side. His entire right side seems to have taken damage. The bleeding won't stop. He's not breathing. …that is, until, seconds before I can start panicking, he gasps, struggling to breathe as he clutches his gun. I quickly, carefully, turn him over and let Miranda and Jacob start tending to him, telling them to call Joker and tell the_ Normandy _to get the med bay ready._

 _When they've done all they can to stabilize him and go to make the call, I look down at him. "Just hold on, Garrus. We're going to help you. …I won't let anything happen to you. …I can't lose you."_

 _Getting him back to the_ Normandy _without aggravating his injuries is difficult. But waiting around my cabin for hours while Dr. Chakwas and the Cerberus medics do their work is even harder. When Jacob calls me down to the COMM room and tells me the news, I feel a storm of emotions rising inside me._

 _But then the door opens and a familiar turian approaches it. "Shepard." Hearing his voice say my name brings the sun streaming through the clouds again. Even when I turn to him and see the damage caused by the hit he took. I have my friend back. Now I have a reason to fight again. And I don't have to go into the fight feeling alone._

 _An hour later, though, I go to check on him at his new post in the main battery and hear how he ended up in the position I found him in. When I hear what he went through, I know why he seems so different. Somewhere, deep under his tough turian soldier exterior…he's broken. I know from Akuze what it's like to lose your entire team. But he only suffered the same thing because someone he trusted betrayed him. He didn't deserve that. This wound is still fresh, too. He needs time. I just wish there was something I could do to help._

 _And, as it turns out, there is. Sometime after Horizon, he tracks down his traitor. Lantar Sidonis is hiding out on the Citadel thanks to a forger named Fade. All we have to do is track down the forger and we can…_

 _"You humans have a saying," he tells me, his voice darkening with every word, "'An eye for an eye; a life for a life.' He owes me ten lives. And I plan to collect."_

 _I take us to the Citadel immediately, but I know something is wrong. It's not until we actually get close to cornering Fade that I start to see what. He still seems like the Garrus I know (if a bit edgier) when we meet the volus contact, but the second he sees Harkin at the prefab foundry, he starts to turn into someone else entirely. When we come to a security checkpoint and take the chance to check our weapons and look over the next room, he tenses up completely. The way he talks about the next phase of the plan sounds even less like the Garrus I know than the restless turian I caught a glimpse of on Dr. Saleon's ship. It only gets worse when we actually have Harkin cornered. He's been through a lot and he needs someone to take it out on—that much is clear—so I let him have at it for a minute (secretly laughing inside at some of the exchange). But when Harkin gives us what we need and Garrus pulls his gun anyway…_

 _I move on instinct, grabbing his wrist and yanking it back to send the bullet flying at the ceiling instead. I give him some comment about how Harkin can't hide from C-Sec now, but I make it clear in my eyes that I really think he's being reckless and brutal, more than I've ever seen him. He knows I'm right, I can tell. But the way he pushes me off, the look he gives me as he does it, how he threatens Harkin's life anyway on our way out—it all haunts me for the entire time we're in the skycar on the way to the meeting point. None of it is something I could expect from the Garrus I know. It's not like the soldier who stood at my side through every mission, giving me comfort and strength with the knowledge that someone I could trust absolutely had my back for every second of every single firefight. Not the turian I've considered the closest friend I have ever since Virmire, even counting Tali. Not the man who looked in my eyes as if he truly cared about me, who made every organ I had seem to flutter when his voice spoke my name, who I know that I could never face the Collectors—or even_ live _—without. Not the Garrus Vakarian that I…I…_

… _oh, no…_

 _The skycar pulling to a stop snaps me out of it, but I can't deny it now. My great emotional revelation has struck me. I care about Garrus Vakarian. As more than a squad-mate or even a friend._

 _So when he starts to rave about the fact that we left Harkin alive, I know exactly why it kills me inside to see him snapping like this. I instantly try to talk him down but he dismisses every plea I give. He's in too deep now. All he cares about is justice. But it's not justice. It's revenge. I warn my squad against acting out of vengeance for good reason. I've seen what taking it can do to someone. The hunger for it eats away at you until, even after you finally get it, you're never the same again. It's like a drug, for which a single dose is deadly: the person you were before is gone forever. I can't let that happen to Garrus. I can't do this without him._ Well, certainly not now. Nice work, Shepard. You just fell off that hill you took your whole life to climb. _…no, it's too late to worry about that now. I just need to help him._

 _Garrus won't listen to me like this. I need to find some other way to bring him around. And there's only one. While he sets up his sniper rifle on a balcony overlooking the lounge entrance and prepares to fire, I move in to set up his shot. But when Sidonis gets into position, I'm blocking his place in Garrus' sights. So I warn him. Garrus loses it, of course, but I stand my ground, keep Sidonis from getting his skull vented. After a minute of keeping Sidonis talking, hearing why he did what he did and how it's affected him, I give Garrus the last argument I have: "Look at him, Garrus, he's not alive. There's nothing left to kill."_

 _For an achingly slow few seconds, he keeps his gun trained my way. Then… "Just…go. Tell him to go."_

 _He's certainly distraught when I come back to him. He seems a bit more like himself again once I ensure him that he did the right thing. But he needs some time alone. So I take us back to the ship and give him a few hours before I go down to the battery to check on him. When I do, he really does seem like my—_ the Garrus I know _. (_ Hmm. Guess it really is too late. _)_

 _"I wanted to thank you again for your help with Sidonis," he tells me, "Whatever happens with the Collectors or the Reapers or whoever else comes after us, I know you'll get the job done."_

 _"You really think we'll find something worse than Collectors or Reapers?"_

 _"I like to expect the worst. There's a small chance I'll be pleasantly surprised."_

 _I smile. Yup. He's back. "I couldn't do this without you, Garrus."_

 _He smiles back at me. "Sure, you could. Not as stylishly, of course."_

 _I just barely keep myself from laughing before stepping over to the crate pushed against the wall and sitting down on it. I listen intently as he answers any questions I might have about his past with the turian military. But I also watch him. Every move he makes seems to confirm what I already know. His story about sparring the female scout is filled to the brim with his trademark turian humor—something, as far as I know, only Garrus Vakarian uses._

 _No. No more holding back, Shepard. I know what I have to do now. It's pretty clear we both need a release. Besides, the mission I'm so worried about is going to be a suicide mission either way and I don't wanna die regretting something like this. I care about him. Too much to ignore it. So I do something I've never done before._

 _I get up and tell him "Sounds like you're carrying some tension. Maybe I can help you get rid of it."_

 _He's definitely not expecting what I'm implying. "I, uh…didn't think you'd feel like sparring, Commander."_

 _I smirk as I step over to lean against the console. "What if we skipped right to the tiebreaker? We could test your reach…and my flexibility."_

 _He gets it now. And, apparently, I've never seen him really_ shocked _before. "OH! I didn't, uh…" He looks at me hesitantly, stumbling to find the words. "Never knew you had a weakness for men with scars," he finally comments. When he then starts thinking it over and realizes his answer is actually "yes," I give him one last smile and leave him to his work._

 _After the next mission, I come back to see him again and the first thing he does is lock the battery door behind me so he can freely confess his concerns. "Are we crazy to even be thinking about this?" he asks half to me and half to himself as he paces the room, "I'm not sure…" He finally brings himself to a stop, sighing as he turns to look at me. "Look, Shepard, I know you can find something a little closer to home."_

How can he even think that? _I don't even take a second to think over my response before I step closer to him. "I don't want something 'closer to home.' I want you."_

 _He's clearly not expecting that answer. He certainly seems eager to go through with this, but the way he's acting insinuates he's still not sure. Still, when I ask him, he makes it clear how he feels. "Shepard, you're about the only friend I've got left in this screwed-up galaxy. I'm not gonna pretend I've got a fetish for humans, but this isn't about that. This is about us. You don't ever have to worry about making me uncomfortable. Nervous, yes, but never uncomfortable." He's not just nervous, though. He's lonely and hurting. If he really thinks I'm the only friend he has…maybe he actually needs this more than I realized._

 _Over the next few weeks, I make it a regular thing to check in on him. Apparently, that gives away that there's something going on between us, because the crew we were attempting to leave out of it start acting like they know. Those suspicions are outright confirmed when Mordin gives me a_ talk _about the medical implications of what we're planning. Since this clearly means I'm past the point of hiding it, I just give him the truth: "I care about Garrus. He means a lot to me. Nothing's going to scare me away." And from the look Garrus gives me next time I bring him on a mission, I can tell Mordin had the same talk with him…and told him what I said._

 _When the time finally comes to head for Omega-4, Garrus comes almost straight to my cabin. "Hey," he says when he sees me, after a second or two of uncertainty, "I brought wine. Best I could afford on a vigilante's salary." After he sees that my only response is a smile, he steps over to my music system and turns it on. I start to draw closer to him then, seeing more and more how nervous he is with every step. "If you were a turian, I'd be complimenting your waist or your fringe. So…your, uh…hair…looks…good…and your waist is…very supportive."_

 _It takes a lot of restraint not to burst out laughing at that statement. As it is, I end up smirking at him._

 _He perceives that as a signal that he just said something wrong, apparently. "Hopefully, that's not offensive in human culture. Crap! I knew I should've watched the vids. Throw me a line here, Shepard!"_

 _As much fun as it is watching him squirm, I have to put a stop to this now. "Whoa!" I hold my hands up, signaling him to quit talking. "Consider me seduced, smooth-talker!" I sigh, turning to shut off the music. "Calm down, Garrus. You're worrying too much. …and talking too much."_

 _He sighs, visibly relaxing. "I just…I've seen so many things go wrong, Shepard. My work at C-Sec, what happened with Sidonis…"_

 _My heart aches for him. It's true, he's been through too much. And I want to do everything in my power to amend that._

 _"I want something to go right," he says, his voice seeming weaker as I close the distance between us, "Just once. Just…"_

 _Before he can say anything else, I press my hand against his scars. The contact sends a silence washing over us that consumes any doubts I have left. Even when my hand falls away, I move as close to him as I'm still capable, leaning into his grasp as his hand slowly moves up my arm to rest on my shoulder. I don't let him stop there, though. It's time to skip to the tiebreaker. I reach and move his hand myself, bringing it from my shoulder to my face. Then, holding it there, I fall into him and we kiss for the first time._

 _He takes a few seconds to start kissing me back. But the second he does, my heart starts pounding harder, overcome with the sensation. As my senses fill with him, how his fingers slide into my hair and take hold of it almost possessively, how his arms wrap around me to pull me closer, my mind fades into it, driving away all semblance of rational thought. For the next two hours, all that exists is this embrace with him, pure and passionate and…something I could spend every second of the rest of my life in._

 _When we come back from the mission, everything has changed. I prove that the second I cross the CIC to kiss him (triumphantly, in fact) in front of the entire crew. That night, I all but collapse in my bed to sleep off the mission behind us. I wake up with him beside me. Over the next week, we spend more time alone together in my cabin than we do actually on duty. Even when we go to help Liara with her Shadow Broker problem, we don't leave each other's sights. After it's over, though, Liara is the one who ends up alone with me in my cabin. I'll admit, it's a nice reprieve. I can talk to Liara about things I can't with the rest of my crew. Especially about my newfound relationship._

 _"So tell me what you want," she asks me, "What are you fighting for? A chance to give Garrus some peace?"_

 _Hearing it, I think back to what I've seen from him since my return. The memories hurt me about as much as I know they do him. So I sigh and sit down on the bed, laying it all on the line: "He's been hurt, betrayed. He deserves something better." Although the thought of it makes me shake my head. "I never thought I'd find peace in the arms of a turian, but…"_

 _"Why not?" Liara comments, "Humans seem to have no trouble finding asari attractive."_

 _I instantly give her a look. "Everyone finds asari attractive."_

 _Liara simply smirks before giving me a supportive smile, sympathy gleaming in her eyes. "I hope the two of you find some happiness, Shepard."_

 _I'm already happy with him. Practically the second she leaves, I call him up to see him again. This time, he's not two feet past the door before I jump over to kiss him. For the first time, he doesn't hesitate to respond, wrapping himself around me as I do the same to him. When the embrace ends, we wind up lying down on my bed together, watching the stars over our heads. I really do wish we could spend the rest of our lives this way. But when he offers to do so, I know the Reapers aren't the only thing standing in the way of that. Reluctantly, I realize what I have to do and tell him as much: I need to turn myself in to the Alliance._

 _"…hey…" I tell him, "this isn't goodbye forever. We'll see each other again someday."_

 _"We'd better," he responds as he meets my eyes, "…I love you, Shepard."_

 _I smile in response. "I love you, too, Vakarian." Playful as this might be for both of us, we can't deny that it has some shred of honesty to it. We care about each other. That much is obvious when we kiss._

 _Dropping him off on Palaven isn't easy for me, but it'd be worse to keep him along for the ride where I'm going. I spend the next six months locked up in Alliance Headquarters in Vancouver. I send him messages all the time but nothing comes in answer, so I doubt they're even going through. It doesn't matter, though. I still have images of him and even of the two of us together on my omni-tool. I still look at them all the time. For_ six months _, I can't stop thinking about him. That turns out to be a good thing, too. It's the only reason I can finally convince myself to leave when the Reapers come for Earth._

 _For all the trouble the next two days give me, none of it hurts like seeing the Reapers hit Palaven. Liara can see that part of the reason is that I'm seeing what's happening on Earth, but what she doesn't say out loud around James is that someone I care about (not to mention the people_ he _cares about) is down there in that chaos. And these monsters are tearing his world apart. The longer we fight through Menae, the more I feel myself starting to panic that this plan will never work and we'll never be able to stop this war._

 _That panic fades entirely when I hear his voice._

 _"Garrus!" I say, not bothering to hide my absolute relief, "You're alive!" I hold my hand out to him._

 _He takes it, placing his other hand over it after he does. Just the gesture brings my hope back. "I'm hard to kill," he smirks as he pulls away, "You should know that."_

 _I feel like myself again now that he's fighting beside me. Suddenly, taking on these Reaper forces isn't therapy so much as practice. I'm not angry that we're losing Earth; I'm working up to taking it back. With him at my side, I know I can. Shepard and Vakarian are back together. How can we lose?_

 _After we're back on the ship with Victus and I tend to EDI's situation, I head straight to the battery. For all that's been happening with him, he seems just like his old self again now that he's back where he belongs. "Garrus," I smile as I move closer to him, "Didn't waste any time getting to work, I see."_

 _He steps back from the battery just enough to face me. "After what I've been through lately, calibrating a giant gun is a vacation. Gives me something to focus on."_

 _"We're gonna need you for more than your aim."_

 _"Oh, I'm ready for it. But I'm pretty sure we'll still need giant guns. And lots of them."_

 _I smirk. "Can't argue with that."_

 _He then pulls back from his work completely so that he can devote his attention to me. "Yeah. So…is this the part where we…shake hands? Wasn't sure about the protocol on reunions…or if you even still felt the same way about me." He seems…worried. Like I might say "no." Still, he brings himself to meet me with his typical snark: "The scars are starting to fade. I remember they drove you wild."_

 _This time, I don't bother trying to hold back my laughter. I'm glad I don't, actually, because he obviously enjoys it._

 _"But I can go out and get all new ones if it'll help," he smirks as he moves closer to me._

 _I smile, stepping into what little space remains between us. "I haven't forgotten our time together."_

 _"Well…I've been doing some more research on human customs—"_

 _I have the urge to sigh and roll my eyes at him, but I skip right to what I most want to do: I take hold of him and pull him into a position at which I can kiss his scars. When I lean back to meet his eyes, I smile again. "_ That's _the protocol on reunions."_

 _He smiles back, still sort of confused about how to handle this. "The vids mentioned it might go something like that. I mean…I had hoped…I didn't know…"_

 _I turn my gaze to his hands, taking hold of them, and confess my true feelings entirely: "I can't promise how things will work out. Not with this war. But I missed you, Garrus. I thought about you a lot."_

 _"Glad to know my romantic…_ skills _made an impression."_

 _We need each other more in the coming days than either of us would've been willing to admit a year ago. He needs someone to support him in this fight, to show him that he can actually help his people, and I need someone to lean on, someone to remind me why the galaxy is depending on_ me _more than anyone else. Before I know it, he becomes my anchor, keeping me from burning myself out or losing faith. He gives me every reason to hold on, not just because the galaxy needs me…but because he needs me. I don't say it out loud, but inside I know that I need him more. It's not until after the Cerberus attack on the Citadel that I confess why._

 _He invited me to take some time off from the madness so I meet him outside C-Sec. This consequently leads to him flying me up to the top of the Presidium. I speak my mind when I say the view is incredible. In return, he speaks his and tells me why he wanted to bring me here._

 _"It seemed like you needed time to…figure us out," he says, "Are you ready to be a 'one-turian' kind of woman?"_

 _There's only one answer I can give. So I smile as I lock eyes with him and tell him: "The only thing that made leaving Earth bearable was knowing you were out there somewhere."_

 _That's exactly what he needs to hear. "I felt the same way," he says, making it obvious how much he means it, "The worst part about the galaxy going to hell would've been never getting to see you again."_

 _I move closer to him, pouring my heart out to him. "Well, here I am…exactly where I want to be." I wrap my arms around him and confess what I now know to be beyond a doubt the absolute truth: "I love you, Garrus Vakarian."_

 _The emotion behind my words must be overwhelming for him, because he has no idea how to respond. "…wow. The vids Joker gave me…well, they never got this far. There was the part about sleeping together, but this…I don't exactly know what to do."_

 _I've stopped trying to keep myself from laughing when he gets nervous. He knows how much I love it. So I wait until I'm done laughing before I smile brightly to him and tell him what to do. "You grab the girl…and kiss her like you mean it."_

 _Before I realize it, he's taken hold of me and sent me falling into his arms, his eyes locked on mine and gleaming as he smiles. "That I can do." And kisses me._

 _I lose myself in him, all but give into him entirely. By the time I'm forced to pull away to breathe, I'm overcome with ecstasy, my heart pounding with joy. "And rather well." So I pull him back into it and don't let go._

 _His suggestion to have a shooting contest before we head back is certainly tempting. I let my competitive side take over for the first few rounds and he plainly follows. But when it comes down to it, I can't bring myself to even try to win. He deserves a victory of his own. Plus, when I do miss on purpose, the way he starts bursting with triumph to the point of outright shouting "I'm Garrus Vakarian and THIS IS NOW MY FAVORITE SPOT ON THE CITADEL!" is kind of attractive._

 _"It's windy up here!" I snap defensively. Though, inside, I'm just delighting in his reaction._

 _He smirks, wrapping his arm around me. "There, there, it's OK. I know there are other things you're good at."_

 _We reenter the_ Normandy _as boyfriend and girlfriend. From that point onward, I take him on pretty much every other mission we get. What few I don't take him on, I come back to find him waiting for me in my cabin. 90% of my trips to the CIC end with him tracking me down and pulling me aside for just one moment in which we can keep each other all to ourselves. Half the nights I get any sleep, he's right there beside me. Every time the war gets to be too much for one of us, the other is right there for them. There are even times I call him up to my cabin or sneak into the battery specifically so I can take a moment just to be with him. He certainly doesn't seem to mind it._

 _I make it a habit of telling him constantly how much I love him. Though it's pretty obvious I don't actually have to—as many times as I've said it, he must know. He's the exact opposite. Ever the stubborn turian, he doesn't say it. But he shows it in pretty much everything he does—the worry he shows when I face down the Reaper on Rannoch and even after it's dead, the way he clings to me after Thessia, the speed with which he rushes to my rescue on the Citadel, the dance he ropes me into at the casino, with every move he makes the night of the party…_

… _and for the last 24 hours we have together. As soon as I give the order for us to launch the assault on Cerberus headquarters, he finds me in my cabin. I jump at the chance to spend the next few hours with him, wrapping myself around him and ultimately falling asleep there. Even when the dream of the dead forest wakes me up, it doesn't get to me, because he's right there with me. Just like during the actual assault on Cerberus HQ when EDI shows me the console with the Lazarus Project data and I almost let it get to me, but he steps in and shows me I have no reason to. He knows me better than anyone._

 _After that mission is over, all that's left is Earth. The place this all started. The place it's going to end. Seeing it like this, though, knowing what the Reapers have done to it…well, Garrus understands how hard it is for me. The fight is almost as hard. But saying my final farewells to each of my squad-mates, knowing that this might be my last chance, is even harder. The hardest of all is, naturally, Garrus. I don't wanna say goodbye. The message I made for him before we hit the relay should be enough. But I need to give him more than some message to hold onto if something does happen to me. So when he gives me his order to come back alive because he can't live without me, I take hold of him and kiss him like it's the last time we ever will. Which, for all we know, it might be._

 _"Goodbye, Garrus," I pour my heart out to him one last time, "And if I'm up there in that bar and you're not…I'll be looking down. You'll never be alone."_

 _He's right next to me the entire time we fight through to the beam. Every time I'm close to taking that final shot, he rushes to my defense. When EDI gives the signal that the Reaper is in range for the final strike from the Thanix cannon, I almost hear Garrus calling out for me as I rush blindly past the oncoming Brutes and Banshees to reach the controls and hit them. The rush itself leaves me out of breath, and I practically have to lean on him to stay upright as I pant under the pressure of waning adrenaline. The look he gives me says two things at once: "Never scare me like that again." and "I knew you could do it."_

 _But the panic I just came out of it is nothing compared to what happens next. For a minute, I believe we can make it to the beam even under Harbinger's fire. Then Garrus is hit and I lose the will to try. Without thinking, I run back to him and pull him out of the Reaper's line of fire, calling back the_ Normandy _to pull him out. To say he's hesitant to leave me behind would be a colossal understatement. I know I would be fighting to stay at his side if I were in his place, but I can't stand the thought of coming out of this without him. Even if it kills me, I'm getting him out of this. And there's only one way I can convince him to now._

 _I lock my eyes on his, unwilling to look away for anything as I move closer to him. "No matter what happens here…" I place my hand against his scars, not bothering to hide every single emotion pouring out of me. "…you know I love you. And I always will."_

 _He's paralyzed. We both are. Under any other circumstances, we'd both be fighting to stay in this position for as long as we possibly can, but that's not an option now. "Shepard…I…" Then he says the very words I always hoped I'd hear his voice give to me: "…I love you, too."_

 _I force myself to pull away and send them off. Ten seconds later, Harbinger's beam hits me, too. I don't know how I manage to survive it, injured as I may be, but I focus on staying the course, struggle my way to the beam. I make it through long enough to turn on the Crucible. But the only way to save all life in the galaxy is to give up my life. So I do it. And Garrus is the last thing on my mind before the darkness consumes it._

 _I live in that darkness for months. I finally feel myself coming out of it…only to get pulled deeper. Suddenly, I don't know who I am. All I know is the darkness. And pain. My blood screams at me with every passing day, eventually calling for death to free me. Not my own but the deaths of 12 other people. Yet even as I face them, every cell in my body fights against the rest of me. Only one thing can make it stop. So it does stop…when someone brings me back into the light. The only person I've ever truly_ loved _. Garrus Vakarian._

 _He saves my life in more ways than one that day. One of those ways nearly gets him killed. That destroys me. To get my life back now only to have him taken out of it…I could never survive that. But he's alive. So I am, too. When Chakwas finishes tending to him and tells me he'll be fine, I ask her if I can wait with him. She leaves the room after saying "yes," so I take the bed beside him and lay there, waiting for him to wake up. Finally, he wakes up. And I can't stop myself from pouring my heart out to him. Even when the darkness had taken me, I still loved him, just didn't know it. He needs to see that. And he does. So he takes me into his arms and we fall asleep here together. When I wake up, though, I realize how much everything has changed for us. The realization leaves me standing at the memorial wall, looking at the two names at the center—Adm. David Anderson and Commander Shepard. I was dead. …again. And this time, something inside me has changed._

 _The first night I spend back in my old cabin, I fall asleep under the stars I know so well, the darkness surrounding me softly illuminated by the fish tank. It's calming enough to draw me to sleep. …but the dreams that follow are anything but. I see darkness shifting. I feel an unequaled pressure preventing me from fighting it. I hear the voices of a human couple. I feel it as every cell in my body fights me, as if I don't belong inside it. I hear it when the human woman, who the man calls Kendrys, steps up to me and tells me "Fair warning. This is really gonna hurt. …lucky me." I feel it when she starts to pry my cells apart. I fight against the feeling, keep myself from crying out as if pain itself could break me. …but when I feel her start to stop, every sense I have falls into the darkness completely, every nerve in my body screaming from a shock I've never felt before._

 _Feeling it again wakes me up. I don't know how I keep from screaming, but I don't keep myself from jumping. So hard that the whole bed shakes in response, practically throwing me to the floor. I catch myself, but the pressure in my respiratory tract tells me I'm gonna be having trouble breathing for a few minutes. As if I've screamed my throat raw without making a sound._

"Shepard," EDI cuts in, "are you alright?"

 _I grab my hair and take a few seconds to steady my breathing, force myself to give an answer: "I'll be fine, I just…" …no. No, I can't sleep like this. I need… "…call Garrus. Hurry."_

 _He gets here so fast, I could swear he was waiting right outside my door when EDI called him. "What's wrong?"_

 _I look at him for a second before turning to look at the empty side of the bed. The shock of the attack waking me up threw the covers, but it's still intact. "…I can't sleep," I finally tell him, making sure my voice confers there's more to it than I want to talk about._

 _He gets the message. Sadly, he steps over and takes my side. "Nightmares?"_

 _I've gotten nightmares before. He knows that. But this is different. So much worse. So instead of answering, I hug my knees to my chest and look down at my feet._

 _That's all the answer he needs. He sighs and sits down with me, softly running his hand through my hair. "I know…I get them, too."_

 _That draws me to look at him in shock. "I thought you said they were a waste of good sleep."_

 _He smirks at the comment. But it fades away as he remembers the truth: "Aside from the fact that it's kind of hard to think that straight when there's poison in your blood…I almost lost you."_

 _I keep my eyes on his. Those bright blue eyes that I fell in love with…that I didn't even recognize three days ago. The thought makes my vision cloud. As if I'm about to cry again. "…I did lose you."_

 _He understands. He always does. So he does exactly what we both need him to and takes me into his arms, stroking my hair gently as I lean into him._

 _"Stay with me. Please."_

 _He pulls back to meet my eyes again then lays his head on mine with a smile. "Nothing could keep me away."_

 _I fall asleep again to the feeling of him holding me here. The nightmares still come, but his presence keeps them from hurting me again. The darkness doesn't take hold this time. My light pulls me back before it can._

 _He sees it when I wake up. "Sleep any better this time?"_

 _I nod silently. This is going to take time._

 _He must notice that. He presses his hand to my face, carefully turning it to meet his again. "I'll always be here for you."_

 _That assurance is what I need to hear. I smile for him, lightly placing my hand against his scars. "I know you will."_

 _He keeps his eyes locked on mine, as lost in them as I am in his. "…I love you, Sara."_

 _"…I love you, too, Garrus."_

 _Just like that, my cabin becomes ours. I never sleep alone again. Not that I'd want to. No, with him here beside me…everything is perfect. Even the night that the fears of what's happened to me almost take over, he gets me through it. I may be broken, but he makes me whole again. Two months pass by this way, the attacks slowly fading in intensity. But the nightmares don't change as much. Sometimes I wonder if they'll ever change at all. Yet our waking hours are as if everything we wanted during the war has come to pass. When Tali calls us to the Citadel with a warning that brings an attack, though, things finally start to change for us. It's only after a mission to Aephus that I understand everything. The darkness can't touch me here. Never again. I faced it. I conquered it. Garrus is here to make sure it never comes for me again. After the final battle on Earth, when the shadows that tormented me for so long are finally extinguished, it becomes certain: we are going to spend the rest of our lives together. Free._

 _"…never let me go again?" he smirks._

 _I smile, laying my head down on his shoulder. "Never."_

 _I've told him as much. That he's the first person I ever loved, that I can't live without him, that he means more to me than I can ever say. We're inseparable already. There is no Shepard without Vakarian. And, as he made quite clear, no Vakarian without Shepard. Now…there will never have to be again. As long as we love each other, nothing can break us apart._

The sound of someone knocking on the door snaps me out of my five-years-old thoughts.

I groan as I get up. "What now?"

Garrus sighs as he turns over and pushes the covers aside. "Well, count up how many people live here and I think you can take a guess."

Right. Knowing that, I actually can tell who must be on the other side of the door before I ever open it. And, as it turns out, I'm correct. When the door opens, a certain human boy with dark brown hair and bright brown eyes stands there.

I smirk, getting down to his level. "What is it, Hunter?"

"Kyla's calling you," Hunter says.

I look at him in confusion. "Calling for me?" I quickly get to my feet and move into the room at the end of the hall.

In the bed sits a small turian girl with blue eyes even brighter than Garrus'. She sees me and smiles. "Mama!"

I stop moving. …she really just called me… I find myself smiling in sheer amazement and disbelief. When Kyla holds her hands out to me, I force myself to move again solely to take her into my arms, smiling even brighter when she responds by essentially hugging me.

"Well, this is a historic event," Garrus smirks from the door.

"Our adoptive daughter claiming me as her mother?" I ask for clarification.

"No, Sara Vakarian rendered speechless."

"Shut up."

Before Garrus can do anything but smirk in response, his omni-tool starts beeping. He turns to check it. "Solana's calling."

I turn to face him, Kyla following my gaze. "Take it."

He nods, taking my side and answering the call.

 _"Figured I'd catch you both," Solana comments, "How are things going in paradise?"_

"As you might expect by using the comparison," I point out, "fantastic."

"Hi, Aunt Sol!" Hunter jumps in between me and Garrus.

 _She smirks. "Hey, kid. Still taking care of your new sister?"_

"Yeah," Hunter answers. As if it's his job and she shouldn't be questioning whether he would live up to it or not.

I smirk at the exchange, deep down wishing I had ever had a sibling while also deeply grateful I never did. Pushing the thought aside, though, I turn back to Solana. "So why'd you call?"

 _"Just wanted to make sure you weren't getting into trouble out there," Solana smirks back, "I know you have a way of attracting danger as much as strays."_

I groan. "Like brother, like sister."

"How can you say that?" Garrus asks.

"You're both endearingly insufferable."

Garrus sighs and gives me a playful shove.

"Yeah, see? Like that."

 _"Wow," Solana comments, showing obvious turian sarcasm, "I'd never know you two were married."_

Garrus just shakes his head. "Why'd you really call?"

 _Solana takes a moment to respond… "…_ I'm _getting married."_

I instantly beam with joy. "Solana, that's wonderful!" Kyla apparently picks up on my delighted reaction, because she starts clapping, which makes me start laughing.

"Wow," Garrus smirks, "If you'd told me eight years ago…"

 _"Yeah, yeah, watch it," she counters._

"I'm just messing with you. I'm happy for you, Sol."

 _She smiles. "Thanks. …I hope we're as happy as you are."_

I look at Kyla, Hunter, and Garrus in turn. "…I don't see how that's possible, but…I hope you are, too."

 _She nods. "Alright. I'll call you again later."_

"Talk to you then," Garrus nods before she hangs up. When he turns off his omni-tool, he considers the news. "…I actually don't believe this."

"Well, you and me is kind of hard to believe and look how that's turned out," I smirk.

Garrus smirks back, looking at Hunter. "Yeah. Turned out pretty well." As he says so, he messes Hunter's hair.

Hunter quickly pushes his hand away. "Stop that!"

I sigh. "Don't make me separate you two again."

"You're the one who talked me into taking him home," Garrus remarks.

"I'm standing right here!" Hunter says.

Garrus laughs. "Come on. Let's get you something to eat."

I smile as I watch Hunter leave the room. The six-year-old (well, to be fair, he'll be seven in a couple months) was a war orphan, born on one of the colonies the Reapers hit. Somehow, his parents had managed to get him to the Citadel before they died and the people overseeing the refugee camps had ensured he was taken care of. But with no one willing to really take him in, he was facing a future as a duct rat by the time Garrus and I found him three years ago. You could say I saw a bit of myself in him; that combined with Garrus' C-Sec horror stories was enough encouragement to take him in ourselves. As you can see, it's worked out fairly well.

Then I turn my attention to Kyla. Before she was even two years old, both her parents, soldiers for the hierarchy, were killed in action. Garrus' place in the hierarchy got him the news faster than most, so he was in the perfect position to talk me into taking her in like we took in Hunter. Let's just say I was apprehensive at first—I'd never really handled a baby before and I'm far from the nurturing type. But we never had gotten biology to cooperate (though not for lack of trying…) and this was likely the closest second we were going to find. I don't know what possessed me to agree to it, but I haven't regretted it so far.

So I sigh and turn my full attention to her. "Well. It's just you and me now. What do we do?"

Kyla gives the two-year-old-turian equivalent of a smirk and grabs my nose.

I push her hand off, smirking back as she laughs. "You're _all_ endearingly insufferable, aren't you?" I shake my head at her. "Alright. …I'm hungry, too." So I follow Garrus and Hunter out.

Ten minutes later, Hunter and Kyla are both going off to play as I sit in the kitchen with Garrus.

I sigh as I poke through a bowl of fruit. "When's the next supply run supposed to come in?"

"About two hours," Garrus answers.

"Oh. Good timing." Liara has a knack for that. Since she found this planet for us and helped us to get settled in under the radar, she's been keeping us supplied. Some might think constantly sending things to a technically uncharted planet would probably raise some suspicion, but, thankfully, not even her agents question the Shadow Broker's motives. Shaking my head at the thought, I set the bowl aside, biting into a strawberry as I turn back to Garrus. When I look at him, I find that he's watching the hall Hunter and Kyla just went down, barely moving at all. "…Garrus?"

He smirks. "I wonder if Solana is gonna have kids."

I think about that and find myself smiling with him. "I wouldn't be surprised. She seems like she'd make a good mother."

"Can you really judge that until it happens? I mean, I never would've pictured myself as the father type…"

"Really? 'Cause I think you handle it pretty well."

He turns to face me. "With you helping, I guess."

I simply look down at the strawberry remains in my hand before stepping aside to toss it. "Yeah, well, I'd be lying if I said I could handle this without you."

"Hey," he says as he comes over to me, "It's like you said. There's nothing we can't do together."

"Now let's not get ahead of ourselves. …we've still got teenage years ahead of us."

"Oh, great, now I'm gonna have nightmares again."

I smirk, giving him a playful shove.

"Ha! Now who's being insufferable?"

" _Endearingly_ —don't forget that part."

He answers with another smirk. Then, slowly, the playfulness in his eyes fades to that same admiration I've grown so used to. As he keeps his gaze locked with mine, his hand reaches up to my hair, his talons pushing my hair back from my face as his fingers tenderly brush against my skin. The sensation ignites me, sends a shiver through my lungs that brings me to grab the wall behind me to keep from falling against it. His hand doesn't move, even as his other slides around my waist and the distance between us slowly disappears. Focus fading, I gradually pull my hand back from the wall to press it to his scars as the world is lost to this embrace with him—

Then Kyla gives off that distressed sound she gives whenever she's been left alone and awake.

I shock back from Garrus with a groan. "What'd I tell you?"

Then, as if on a timer, Hunter calls "Uh…help?!"

Garrus sighs. "Figures. You wanna take Hunter or Kyla?"

"Scylla or Charibdis…" I mutter.

He just looks at me and turns on his omni-tool, typing that in.

I look at this in amazement. "Really? In seven years, I've never given you the Odyssey?"

"Your people have _a lot_ of this stuff, Sara," he comments before stepping off to check on Kyla.

I wait for him to walk off before rolling my eyes and heading to Hunter's room.

Hunter is standing by his bed. "…I can't reach it."

I follow his gaze to see the bookshelf on his wall. Usually, he can get to them himself, but the book in question was thrown on top of the others and is unfortunately larger than most of them. I scoff to myself at one thing, though: "Well, at least this situation is easily resolved." I easily take the book down and set it on his bed. "There."

"Thanks." With that, he sits down and starts flipping through it.

I start to turn to leave but stop myself when I look at the book. "Wait…" I sit down next to him and watch as he goes through the pages. Some of them are filled with pictures I can tell are meant to be of us and our former crewmates. Most of the rest are filled with notes on the galaxy and, if I'm reading it right, the _Normandy_ and all we've been through aboard it. "You've been doing this since we started telling you the story, haven't you?" The story of our lives, fighting for life everywhere.

He nods. "It's so cool, what happened with you." _Well, that's not the word I would've used at the time…_ "I wanted to write it down."

"If you're worried anyone's ever gonna forget what happened, Aunt Liara's already got it covered."

"No. I just thought I could tell it myself someday."

I smirk at the thought. "Maybe." Then I actually look at what he's writing. "Hey, wait a minute! I never said I wrestled a varren!"

"You didn't? Aw…"

Garrus then steps up to the door with a sigh, Kyla in his arms. "Well. She's upset."

I step over to see what's wrong. "Did something happen when you checked on her?"

"Actually, I think she's still upset she was in her room alone for five seconds. This girl can hold a grudge."

I scoff. "She just needs some attention. Uh…" Something he said earlier comes back to me then: "You said the next supply run was on the way. Maybe she'd want to go with you to get it."

"It might be a bit harder to bring everything back and watch her at the same time…" he points out, "…but I guess I can handle it." He then looks at her. "Right?"

She answers by looking at him and promptly turning away.

I blink. "Wow. She _can_ hold a grudge."

"Like I said…" Garrus shakes his head before walking off.

I smirk after him before turning back to Hunter. "Did you need anything else?"

Hunter simply looks down at one page in the book.

Curiously, I move over there and look. The book is open to a picture of me holding my bow. "Wow. That's actually pretty good."

"I guess." He sighs, closing the book. "…Mom?"

I'm still far from used to hearing him call me that, so I take a few seconds too long to respond. "…yeah?"

He looks at me with pleading in his eyes. "…could you teach me how to use a bow?"

I freeze at those words. I try to say something but can't find the words. "Uh…I'm sorry, what?"

"I wanna be able to shoot like you can."

"Oh, that's asking a lot…" I sigh. I run a hand through my hair for a second, thinking this over. There's really no reason I can't teach him. It's not like I'd be handing him a gun or anything, and I could blunt some arrows for him so that he couldn't hurt anything bigger than a spider. Finally, I just consent to telling him the best truth I can compile: "I don't know if I can, Hunter. The only bow we have is mine and it was custom-made for me—it's too big for you."

He seems visibly disappointed. "Oh."

I give him a look. "Hey…" I take his hand. "…nothing's gonna try attacking you. And even if it did, your dad and I would take care of it inside of five seconds."

He laughs. "I know. I just thought it'd be cool to know how."

I answer that by pressing my hand to his hair. "You're cool already."

"Shut up."

I laugh, messing up his hair as I pull back. Before he can respond to this, though, my own omni-tool starts beeping. I check to see who it is. "It's Liara." I look at Hunter. "Think you can handle yourself for a few minutes, kid?"

He turns back to his book and nods. "Yeah."

I start into the next room. "Call me if you need me!" I call back as I leave earshot. Once I'm settled on the couch, I answer the call. "Hey, Liara."

 _She smiles. "Hello, Sara. I trust things are going well out there?"_

"Perfect. What about you? Are you doing OK?"

 _"I can handle myself, Sara. I'm fine."_

"Yeah, I know you can, but judging by our history…"

 _"Fair enough."_

I smirk before lying back on the couch. "So why'd you call?"

 _"Two reasons. First, I heard about Solana's recent engagement and wanted to tell you to pass on my congratulations."_

"Why not call her yourself?"

 _"We're not that well acquainted._

"…right…so my conferring a message from you in response to something she only told us an hour ago won't be weird…"

 _Liara just shakes her head at me. "Of course. Second, I wanted to warn you that the supply run is going to be about an hour late today."_

I groan. "Great. Garrus just took Kyla out a couple minutes ago to get it."

 _"Oh. I suppose I should let you call him back."_

"No, it's fine. He'll call me or you if there's a problem with it." Then I consider what happened since he left. I quickly sneak a glance back at Hunter's room to make sure he hasn't left it and still can't hear me. "Uh…while we're talking, though…do you think you could sneak something extra into the supply run next month?"

 _Liara looks at me curiously. "Depends on what you're asking for."_

"It's, uh…Hunter just asked me to teach him how to use a bow, so I was wondering if you could make one in his size before his birthday."

 _Liara's look then turns to amazement. "Wow." Then she starts to smirk. "What's that human saying? 'Train them up in the way they should go'? Or would 'like mother, like son' be more accurate?"_

"Shut up."

 _She just laughs. "I'll look into it."_

I smile. "Thanks."

 _"We'll always be friends, Sara. I'll do what I can for you."_

"You've sure put up with a lot. Although, I guess that just tells you who your real friends are."

 _Liara smiles. "Yes. I suppose it does." She then turns aside, obviously diverting her attention to her network. "I should probably return to work now."_

"Be careful, alright?"

 _"When have you known me not to be?"_

" _You didn't test the shunting program_!"

 _She winces. "Right. Sorry. …it still worked."_

I sigh, shaking my head. "As much as I miss jumping across the galaxy with you all, there are times I'm glad our days of getting shot at are more or less over."

 _She smirks again. "We miss those days as much as you do, Sara, believe me."_

I smirk back. "Fine. Go have fun with the galaxy's secrets. I'll see you next time everyone comes back here."

 _"Alright. I'll see you then. …I hope you are always happy there together."_

At that, my smirk fades to a genuine smile. "We will be. Thank you."

 _Liara simply nods and disconnects._

I turn off my omni-tool and breathe deep, lying down on the couch completely. Through my entire life, it's been very rare for me to find a moment to myself—

 _Beep, beep!_

Yep, saw that coming. Keeping my resounding groan under my breath, I answer my COMM.

 _"…so…"_

"Liara just called. You'll have to wait an hour."

 _Garrus sighs. "Fine. We can wait."_

"Just be careful, alright?"

 _"Remember who you're talking to, Sara."_

"Oh, I remember. Need I remind you how you got those scars?"

 _He noticeably hesitates to respond. "…I'll talk to you later." Then he hangs up._

I scoff before turning off my COMM and reverting to my relaxed state. …then, about eight minutes later, I start getting restless and get back on my feet.

Ironically, it's about the same time that Hunter comes out of his room. "What's going on?"

"Supplies are delayed. Just you and me for the next hour."

He considers that for a moment before breaking into a smile.

I take a second to look at him. "What?"

He sits down next to me. "Can I hear another story?"

"You want me to keep talking about how we saved the galaxy when he's not even here?"

"No! An Earth story."

Oh. Right. My specialty. I smile and lean back onto the couch. "Alright." He gladly leans back with me, not even caring when I wrap an arm around him. I consider for a moment which story to give. There's so many, after all. I finally decide which one he'd like the most and skip past the PG-13 introduction straight to the story: "Once there was a boy named Arthur Pendragon…"

He listens intently to the whole story, occasionally giving off an amazed reaction. He certainly seems to enjoy it. And, perfect timing, 20 seconds after I finish telling him every part of the story I think is appropriate for a six-year-old to hear, Garrus comes back with Kyla.

Garrus sighs as he closes the door and Kyla comes over to me. "Got it here. I was right, though, it was more difficult with her."

I shake my head at him as I pick up Kyla. "Probably did her some good."

"Yeah, but it wore me out."

"You poor thing."

He just gives me a look before stepping aside. "Just for that, I'll let you keep her."

It takes a second to realize what he's talking about. Kyla's tired again, and when a two-year-old (turian or otherwise) gets tired, you can expect some wild behavior. Thankfully, the term "terrible twos" isn't as applicable to her as it would be to most human children, but getting her to stop squirming for three seconds at this point would be like trying to talk a thresher maw out of eating you. "Great," I finally sigh, "Guess we better put her down."

"Good luck," Garrus scoffs as he starts putting the supplies away, "I had to chase her down twice out there—it's why I was ten minutes late."

"Don't worry. I've got it." I reposition my hold on her, slowly moving to her room as I do. "… _may it be an evening star…shines down upon you…may it be when darkness falls…your heart will be true…you walk a lonely road…oh, how far you are from home…_ " Well, it has the desired effect. Kyla starts to calm down, listening as I softly hum the Elven words littered through the chorus. " _…believe and you will find your way…_ " She curls up against me, drawing me to smile as I step into her room. " _…a promise lives within you now_ …" She smiles even as I lay her down in her bed.

Garrus then approaches the door behind me. "…wow. We should've gotten one of her years ago."

I toss him a brief smirk over my shoulder before turning to Kyla again. "… _may it be the shadow's call…will fly away…may it be you journey on…to light the day…when the night is all but gone…you may rise to find the sun…_ " As Kyla slowly drifts asleep, Garrus steps silently over to sit down beside me, looking between the two of us with equal levels of adoration. " _…believe and you will find your way…_ " That's when he reaches over to take my hand and Kyla's breathing steadies. " _…a promise lives within you now…a promise lives within you…now_ …" With Kyla asleep and the song over, nothing can distract me from Garrus' hold on me. I turn to face him, lighting up the moment our eyes meet.

He smiles, running his free hand through my hair again. "I always loved your voice, but…"

"Yeah, I know." I still remember the first time we heard that song together, the day after my return to the _Normandy_ when I talked the squad into watching _Lord of the Rings_ with me; Joker saw fit to point out that all three movies were the same length and suggested we hurry up to start the second one so we could actually get through all three in one day, to which I promptly smacked him in the arm telling him "Don't skip the credits!" (Which amused everyone else there and drew a nudge from Ash about me secretly being a nerd, bringing me to let Joker go ahead and move forward after the song was over instead of sitting through another 15 minutes of names of people that died 150 years ago anyway…) Just as well, I also remember the first time that Garrus heard me sing.

 _The day after I made everyone sit through the trilogy with me, I did the same with the_ Hobbit _movies. After it was over, I came into my cabin humming some of the music and even singing the song of the Misty Mountains under my breath._

 _"So you lied to me! To_ all of us _!"_

 _I jumped and turned to find Garrus glaring me down. "What? What are you talking about?"_

 _"Back during the party on the Citadel when Joker was making 'suggestions' about what to do and brought up seeing if any of us could actually sing besides Tali. You said you couldn't!"_

 _Realizing what he was saying, I smirked, letting off a small laugh. "No, no, no. I said I_ don't _sing. I never said I couldn't."_

 _He smirked back, stepping closer. "Why don't you?"_

 _"Well, it's not exactly a skill I've cultivated with the life I've had. And even outside of combat and all…I guess I just never had a reason to."_

 _He then caught on. "…but now you do?"_

 _I gave him a look. "The Reapers are gone, we're both still alive and together, no one's got me running for my life at the moment, and now, to top it all off, I just managed to get all the best friends I have in the entire galaxy to watch every decent movie ever made in Middle-Earth with me, so yeah, I've got plenty of reasons."_

 _He laughed. "Can't argue with that."_

 _I simply turned to lean against the wall, looking up at the stars above us. When he took my side, carefully wrapping his arms around me, I leaned against him instead. "…_ with a sigh…you turn away…with a deepening heart…no more words to say…you will find…that the world has changed…forever…and the trees are now turning from green to gold…and the sun is now fading…I wish I could hold you closer _…"_

 _Garrus looked at me, slowly drawing me closer to him. "Don't tell the others but I actually kind of enjoyed those vids."_

 _I smirked at him. "Really? For real or just because I spent the whole time curled up against you?"_

 _"Yeah, that may have been a contributing factor."_

 _I laughed. "We can always do it again."_

 _He looked at me for a moment in consideration…then he took hold of me completely and all but threw me onto the bed, wrapping himself around me. "I look forward to it."_

 _I smiled to reciprocate the thought. Then I pulled him down to kiss me._

Now here we are five years later. Still holding onto each other.

I smile again as I tell him the greatest truth my heart knows: "I love you, Garrus."

He smiles back, kissing me briefly before responding: "I love you, Sara."

The rest of the day goes by like normal. Which is the closest to "normal" my life has come since the day I was born. Even the select few times I wanted a "normal life," I never dreamed I would love it so much. But I do. …yeah…everything we've been through has been worth it if it leads to this.

I put Kyla to bed tonight much the same way I made her sleep this afternoon. She gladly complies once she has the bear Hunter once gave her tight in her arms. I smile at the sight before moving to Hunter's room.

"Come on!" Hunter grabs me by the arm the second I step through his door, pulling me over to sit down on the bed with him and Garrus. "It's time to get back to the story!"

I smirk, shaking my head at him as I pull my hair over my shoulder. "I know our lives have been exciting and all, but…"

"Nah, I could've told you the day we brought him home that this was eventually gonna happen," Garrus smirks back.

I sigh, giving him a brief look before turning my attention to Hunter. "Where were we?"

"You'd just come back from the dead," Hunter answers like it's the coolest thing in the world. Which, I guess, from his perspective, it pretty much is.

"Right! Right. OK… Did we tell you about Freedom's Progress yet?" Hunters nods. "Alright, then that brings us to…" I look at Garrus, smiling at what I say next: "…Omega. Cerberus had just given me the SR-2 and we had to put a team together to fight the Collectors. There were two people on Omega that belonged on that team. A salarian scientist named Mordin Solus…and a turian vigilante they called Archangel."

Since we have to take a few minutes to explain the situation on Omega and what exactly a "vigilante" is, it takes almost 45 minutes to explain everything that happened on Omega. By the time we're about ready to start talking about the next stop on the mission, Hunter has already started falling asleep. Exchanging brief smirks with Garrus again for a moment, I turn to lay down the ex-duct rat and step out.

Garrus sighs once we're out of earshot of both kids. "So…we're finally alone."

I smile. "There's one last thing I've gotta take care of. Give me a minute and I'm all yours."

His answer is to move in closer to me, taking hold of me and kissing me by my ear. Then just before pulling back, he whispers into it: "I look forward to it." And as he walks away, his fingers brush against my ear enough to make me flinch from suppressed laughter. The smile he gives me as he moves out of the hall certainly doesn't help matters.

He knows just how to get to me. …and I don't even care.

As he heads out, I go into our room and call up my omni-tool. With a sigh, I sit down on the bed and start sifting through the pictures I have stored in my personal data files. The first one on there is of the _Normandy SR-1_. I stop moving for a moment. The first time I saw that ship, I was taken with it, as if it was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. When Anderson first told me it was mine, I had to mentally kick myself to keep from displaying an unprofessionally enthusiastic response. When the Collectors tore that ship apart, I felt something inside me break long before my oxygen tank did.

I shake those thoughts away. I didn't come in here and pull up old pictures to reminisce over my death. Though it does bring me to remember Alchera. Someday, I ought to go back there with Garrus. It's hardly a tourist attraction, but it was our home once. …once. I sigh, forcing myself to go back to the pictures. The next one is of me, Ash, and Kaidan. Then of the whole squad after Feros. Then the time Joker sneak-attacked me to get in one. The team after the assault on the Collector base, Garrus and me at the top of the Presidium, the party on the Citadel (naturally). All the photographic evidence of what we all went through together. Proof of where we were…and where it led us.

 _"Ash, is this really necessary?" I sighed as I held my hair out of the way._

 _"You said you wanted to do this 'normally,'" Ashley responded, not bothering to hide the fact that it was really a snide comment, "You need a 'something borrowed.'" She then finished fixing the clasp on the necklace and stepped back. "OK. Much better. Now…" And so she pushed my hands down and started messing with my hair._

 _"Ash!" I physically pushed her back. "It's fine!" I straightened it out myself, letting it fall free over my shoulders._

 _"Shepard," EDI spoke up as I checked my reflection, "is there a reason tradition is held at such high value for events like these? Statistically speaking, the odds of what you do during the ceremony having an effect on the marriage's success are low."_

 _"Well, people didn't always use that kind of logic," I answered as I finished checking my hair and started looking over my dress, "What was once considered necessary to promote a healthy relationship eventually set the standard for the culture itself. And just because it's not what you'd expect doesn't mean it's not true."_

 _"That much I can understand."_

 _"Besides," Ash smirked, "what some people see as 'urban legends' and such actually are rooted in fact. Like, for example, what humans sometimes say about redheads…" She made that comment with a sideways glance at me._

 _I answered with a less than subtle glare. "Watch it, LC."_

 _EDI simply looked distantly through her visor, the way she always did when doing a data analysis. "Actually, many of the statements Lieutenant-Commander Williams are referring to do seem to apply to you, Commander."_

 _"Great," I groaned, "Now I'm never gonna hear the end of this."_

 _Liara finally stepped in. "Leave Sara alone. She has enough on her mind as is."_

 _I smiled. "It's 'Sara' already, huh?"_

 _Liara smiled back. "We've been friends for four years. I'd say it was overdue before a marriage was in question."_

 _Tali then came into the room. "Sorry I'm late. There was a—" She stopped talking when she looked at me. "Oh…Sara…"_

 _I looked down at my dress for a second before turning to her. "Not what you were expecting?"_

 _"Far from it." She sighed. "I'm actually jealous. The suit makes 'dressing up' a bit of a dilemma." She then stepped over to me, looking me over more carefully. "But you are beautiful." At a new thought, she started laughing. "Oh, I can't wait to see Garrus' face when he sees this."_

 _I found myself laughing with her. "Someone please take pictures."_

 _"But seriously, Commander," Ashley said, leaning on my shoulder as she looked at me through the mirror, "Vakarian's a lucky one."_

 _I considered that. As much as he'd told me of how much he needed me and cared about me, I knew he thought he was even when I wasn't living up to the phrase "beautiful as a bride." But after all we'd been through together, as many times as he acted as my strength, as much as I loved him, I knew this was true: "I am, too."_

 _Liara placed her hand on my arm. "You deserve this. You belong together."_

 _I smiled. "You're the best friends a soldier on her third life could ask for."_

 _Tali laughed again. "You've been a good friend to all of us as well."_

 _"Commander?" EDI spoke up, "The ceremony will be starting soon."_

 _I sighed. "OK. Liara can take it from here, the rest of you should go get ready."_

 _Ash, EDI, and Tali promptly nodded and headed out._

 _Liara then turned to me. "Are you ready?"_

 _I simply looked at my reflection again. "…I can't believe this is actually happening."_

 _"It is. Everything we've been through has led to this moment. You're ready." She then proceeded to hand over a bunch of blue and white flowers tied together by a blue ribbon. I smiled as I took them. "Now go live your life with the man you love. And don't ever look back."_

 _I ran those words through my head for a moment… "…never again."_

Yeah. "I'll never look back again." Now here I am looking at photos of those days and getting all nostalgic. I sigh as I turn off my omni-tool, the image of me on my wedding day fading with the display. I shouldn't be beating myself up about it. I'm not really looking back like we were worried about. We all knew I was eventually (some even bet immediately) going to get homesick in my own special way for the _Normandy_. Garrus knows it, understands, and even, if I know him (and I know I do), feels the same way. But that doesn't mean we're not happy with the life we have now. Quite the opposite, actually.

That thought reminds me of our exchange in the hall. Smiling at the thought and pushing away the lingering memories I called forth, I track him down. When I find that he's outside, I follow him out.

Funny. Ever since my enlistment, I've gotten used to the kind of automatic and code-locked doors the Alliance sees all the time, but on Earth, I always had to prop open doors I left through to keep them from locking behind me. Now these are the only doors in the entire quadrant, so we never bothered installing locks at all.

To think there was a time when I slept with a weapon in my hand, the nearest window jammed open for a quick escape, and every door around me barred shut. There were even times I spent whole years in underground complexes and abandoned buildings with dozens of other people and still didn't feel safe or even like I wasn't still totally on my own. Now I'm content to think nothing in the galaxy can threaten me. And even if it can, I've got a modified bow and arrow and an overprotective turian husband with a sniper rifle, so bring it on.

Garrus is sitting outside, looking out at the sky.

I smile just at the sight. Then I realize what time it is. It's almost midnight. Last night was one of the few times I haven't sat there with him at midnight. We started doing it shortly after we took in Hunter, trying to get some alone time when he was asleep. After it became a regular thing to take Hunter out here after dark and search for constellations, we used that as an excuse to make our midnight meetings a personal tradition. Now it's a bit of both.

I move over to take his side. "Enjoying the view?"

He smiles as I sit down beside him. "Glad I let you pick where to settle down."

I smirk at the comment before reaching over to take his hand. "I'm just glad we got to at all." I turn my gaze to him, smiling at the sight of his eyes. "I've never been happier than I am with you."

He keeps his eyes on mine, reaching over the hand not locked in mine to stroke my hair. "The feeling's mutual."

Reveling in his gentle touch, I bring my hand up to rest on his scars. As he leans into it, still not taking his eyes off mine, I hold his hand even tighter. "…there was one day, a few weeks before Earth fell, where I wondered what our lives would've been like if we'd never met." Slowly, my hand falls from his face to his chest, feeling the pound of his heart, just slightly quickened by my touch. "Then I remembered this, remembered Omega-4, and I couldn't bear the thought of living without you." His eyes soften, his grasp on my hand tightening as much as mine is on his. "When the Shadows had me, I…I knew there was something missing, but I couldn't…" I sigh, letting my hand fall away from him entirely. "All this time, I thought I gave you my heart." Then my hand finds its way to his, pulling it from my hair to rest over my own heartbeat. "You _are_ my heart."

He simply looks at our intertwined hands, lost in the rhythm of my pulse. "…and you're mine." He clings to my hands, not even looking at me as he lets it out: "Every time I lost you, it destroyed me. I just…" He can't bring himself to say the rest. And if the way his hold on my hands tightens again is anything to go by, he has good reason.

Of course, when that hold tightens so much that an aching rises in my hands, I wind up cutting him off with a sharp "Ow!" I can't hold back in time.

He quickly snaps out of it and lets go. "Sorry."

I stretch my hands out a few times to shake off the pressure. "It's fine."

He still watches me carefully, finally reaching over to run his fingers gently across my hands as if to make sure he didn't damage them.

Pressing my hands to his face and turning his gaze back to me, I give him a look of reassurance. Then, when he barely responds, smirk and kiss his nose.

He laughs briefly before pushing my hands away. Guess I know how to get to him, too.

Giving him one last smile, I breathe deep and fall back against the ground, barely paying attention to how he lies down beside me in response. I keep my eyes focused on the sky. Stars gleam in the distance as twin moons hang off to the side, the third peering over the horizon. But all of those lights are far outshined by the spectra at the edge of the atmosphere. The magnetosphere on this particular planet is just powerful enough to catch all the solar radiation necessary to produce this flood of colorful light every night, as we discovered within the first three days of living here.

 _"This planet's not been named yet, right?" I asked Garrus._

 _"Right," he confirmed._

 _"I submit Aurora. Obviously quite appropriate."_

 _"Obviously?"_

 _I put the pieces together. Palaven's magnetic field was weaker, which was why all its life had adapted to higher levels of radiation, so they probably never saw anything like the "Northern Lights" of Earth. Knowing this, I gave Garrus a brief explanation of the_ aurora borealis _and its relation to what we were seeing here._

 _"Wow," he smirked, "Guess it's true what they say: the most dangerous things in the galaxy are just as often the most beautiful."_

 _"You're talking about me again, aren't you?" I scoffed._

 _"Please, Sara, not everything's about you."_

 _I answered with a playful shove. Then joined him when he started laughing._

We actually did put forward "Aurora" as the name for the planet. My suggestion hasn't gone through yet, but I did notice that, a month after directing it to Liara, her system started showing our position as Aurora in the Corona system (though this was marked to point out that the names were not officially declared by any galactic surveys).

Those thoughts dissipate entirely when I feel Garrus' hand against my face. I take a moment to savor the sensation, then I wrap my hand around his. With a sigh, I lay my head on his shoulder. "Part of me misses the days when we were together just because we _needed_ to be."

He smiles, wrapping his arm around me. "We still are. Just for better reasons."

I can't deny that's true. I also can't deny the feeling that rises inside me when he holds my hand to his heart and reaches over to kiss me where his own hand was resting just a moment ago. So when he attempts to keep going, I move to respond in kind and kiss his scars again. Before we know it, we're wrapped up in each other completely. Even during the days just after our reunion, we had some slight reservations for these embraces. We skipped over them the night of Omega-4 because we knew it might be our last chance. The night we were married, we tore them down entirely, never to be repaired. Which leaves us no reason to hold back as this stargazing turns into the same passionate fire we had that night.

Though we're still brought back to awareness when the sound of thunder reaches us.

Garrus sighs. "We should probably go inside."

I let him help me to my feet and lead us back to our room. We stay quiet until our bedroom door is closed, to avoid waking Hunter or Kyla. But once that's no longer a concern, I take him by the arm and all but throw him onto the bed so I can wrap myself around him and pick up where we left off. "…I love you."

He smiles, nuzzling against me as he replies: "I love you, too." Then he kisses me and the world around us fades away.

This is it. This is what my life has always been leading to. Every bullet I dodged, every explosion I outran, even every friend I lost—it's all brought us here. I should've known the second I first saw him that Garrus Vakarian was the one I was meant to be with. Forever. But I know now. And nothing could keep me away. I have felt love and fallen into it and I will never face a life without it. I could never live without him. No. I'm never letting go. I'll hold on until the end.


	2. Part 2 - Garrus

Part 2 – Garrus Vakarian

 _"We'll get through this," I'd told her, "We always do." Ever since I said so, we'd been standing like that, our arms wrapped around each other. I can't say how long we were in that position before we turned away from the monitor to holding each other close. I just know we hadn't moved since then._

 _"What did I ever do to deserve you?" she suddenly asked, her voice cutting through the silence._

 _I answered with a smirk. "You put everyone else before yourself. You fought to do the right thing even when it was the hard choice. You were strong and kind and brave…" I leaned back enough to look at her, taking in the sight of her bright green eyes and light red hair._ …and beautiful… _"…you were Commander Shepard."_

 _She answered that with a smirk of her own. "That does say a lot, doesn't it?"_

 _I simply kept my eyes locked on hers, one hand finding its way up to rest against her face. She leaned into it, closing her eyes almost peacefully as if she was ready to fall asleep there. "You mean a lot to me, Shepard."_

 _"If I didn't, I'd question your commitment to our relationship," she commented offhandedly, not even moving._

 _"I mean it. You've done more for me than anyone else. You have no idea how much I need you."_

 _She opened her eyes again, staring gently into mine before allowing a soft smile to come, her eyes gradually lighting up as she did. "I need you, too."_

 _"No, you don't. Like I just said, you're Commander Shepard. You could very well have gotten this far without me."_

 _"Not as stylishly, of course."_

 _I let off a small laugh. I did say that, didn't I?_

 _"And I couldn't have. You've saved me out there almost as much as I've saved you"—I scoffed at that—"and there were times the fact that I knew you were there was the only thing that made me keep fighting. Let's face it, you were my best friend long before you were the love of my life."_

 _The casual use of the term drew me to look at her in amazement. She simply kept her gentle smile aimed at me, unfazed. She really meant it. And seeing her here with me, her emerald eyes alight with that adoring gleam…in that moment, I knew that she was mine._

 _Almost without thinking, I took hold of her completely and pulled her in to kiss her. She gladly reciprocated, pressing me tighter against her as she devoted her full attention to me. Slowly, the familiar, affectionate gesture began to gain in passion, sending us spiraling into each other. As I started to lose myself in her, I lost control over my actions. One hand had already slid into her hair, so my talons now tightened their hold on the soft red threads, pulling her back from the building pressure enough for me to turn my attention elsewhere, sending me into a series of kisses across the side of her face and down her neck. She took the chance to catch her breath before diving back in, giving the same wholehearted attention to my scars. Figures that even when she was doing the exact same thing to me that I was doing to her, she had the bigger effect. Although that could also be attributed to the way her hand was softly brushing against my skin, just barely making contact, light as a feather falling from the sky; the tingling sensation it drew it out was…enthralling. Almost as much as the commander herself._

 _I felt it when she started to bring her leg up and press it against me as if preparing to jump up into my arms (which, in our current position, would've sent us both tumbling to the floor). But she simply set it back down and slowly brought herself to pull away from me. "…Garrus…"_

 _It took a second to get past the flash of longing, of desperation to claw my way past her defenses only to give in to her entirely, that hearing her voice saying my name brought surging through me. But once I did, I put together that she was telling me to back off for a second. I forced myself to stop what I was doing immediately. But I took as much time as I could to pull back from my current position to meet her eyes again._

 _The look in her eyes betrayed her own desire, but she still brought herself to say "no": "We're headed to Horizon tomorrow. I need to start making sure we're ready to move in when I set the course."_

What? Oh. Right. There's a war on. _"Right. Go on ahead, I'll just…get back to calibrating this thing."_

 _She just barely kept herself from laughing. "…you know…even if the preparations take all day, we've still got a whole night between now and setting that course. …I'm sure I could use some company besides a hamster and some fish."_

 _To that one,_ I _just barely kept myself from laughing. "I think that's an assignment I wouldn't have any problem with taking."_

 _So she took my hand and leaned in to whisper into my ear. "I love you, Garrus." She then pressed her other hand to my face long enough to kiss my scars one last time as she pulled away. Taking only a moment to meet my eyes, she stepped back and started to leave the battery._

 _I smiled. "What did I ever do to deserve you?"_

 _She stopped walking before reaching the door and turned to look back at me. "You were the best friend I could've asked for. You stood by me at every turn. You were there for me when I needed you. You showed me the light again when things were looking dark. You were loyal and honest and caring…" She locked eyes with me one more time and smiled, bringing that spark in her own eyes that I loved so well. "…you were Garrus Vakarian." With that, she turned and left the battery._

 _I stayed there in the battery for the next several hours, going through the targeting systems without really paying attention and impatiently waiting for either Shepard to call me up or EDI to signal lights out—whichever came first. After a while, all the numbers started to look the same. I checked the nearest clock. 19:39, by Alliance military time. Still a couple hours before my option two. I turned my attention back to the console, sifting through the algorithms again. Nothing had changed and I wasn't thinking clearly enough to make any changes. Every few seconds, I glanced at my omni-tool as if it'd make a message from my girlfriend magically appear. No luck on either front. But at least the restlessness kept my mind off of the worries that'd been eating at me when Shepard first came by. When I reached the point where my mind was slowing down so much that I couldn't even stand to look at the numbers anymore and still no word came, I figured it must have been at least a whole hour I'd just killed. So I checked the time again._

 _19:48._

That does it! _I growled and put the algorithms aside, stepping out of the battery. I didn't even know where I was planning on going until I was already on the elevator and hitting the button for deck 1. I didn't care if she was still busy or if she wasn't even on that deck when I got there, I just needed to either see her or be in the right place to meet her the second she was done. It wasn't like it'd be the first time I waited around in her cabin while she was off doing something else without me. But when I actually stepped into her cabin, I found out why she hadn't called me up yet._

 _At some point near the end of the preparations she was talking about, she'd collapsed on her bed, curled up on top of the covers with her left hand wrapped tightly around a datapad._

 _I found myself smirking at the sight before cautiously making my way to her, as if one wrong step would wake her up. When I finally came to her side, I carefully pried her fingers off the datapad to set it aside, not even caring when they instead began to clutch mine. For a moment, I looked down at her, letting one talon softly sift through her hair as I considered how to handle this situation. There was really only one acceptable way: leave her be. She needed the rest far more than I needed the distraction. So I started to quietly pull away._

 _Before I could, her hand tightened its hold on mine, holding me in place. She shifted just enough to look over at me. "Where are you going?"_

 _I gave her hand a gentle squeeze before turning to her entirely. "Shepard, you're running yourself ragged. I can wait. Go ahead and get some sleep."_

 _She simply turned over, bringing my hand closer to her. "I'm not gonna be able to sleep either way. Besides…" She smiled softly again, her fingers gently rubbing against the back of my hand. "…we made plans."_

 _Obvious as it was that I couldn't dissuade her, what really convinced me was the first part of her argument. She was having trouble sleeping. Instinct told me she needed someone there with her, someone to lean on. That'd always been me. So I stepped around to the other side of the bed, Shepard only releasing my hand once she saw I was staying with her, and sat down beside her, letting her toss the covers over us both. When I realized that she wasn't going to change her position, I laid down beside her, wrapping my arms around her to keep her close._

 _She smiled, nestling against me in response. "You know that I really do love you, right?"_

 _I smiled back, taking in the sensation of her hand sliding up my side to my face. "You've made it pretty clear."_

 _She let her fingers glide softly over my marks before falling down to her side. "…do you love me?"_

 _I actually froze. She'd never asked me something like that before. Mostly because I believed we had both assumed she didn't have to. I had no idea how to respond. "…Shepard…I…" But I never got the chance to respond at all. By the time I'd said that much, she'd already fallen back asleep, her lungs a gentle rhythm against my own. I sighed and stayed pressed to her, burying my face in her hair, resting my hand against her ribs as her heartbeat coursed through them, taking comfort in the way she nestled against me…_

…yes…I do, _I found myself thinking as I fell into her completely,_ I always loved you, Shepard. And I always will. _Unlike her, I was miles away from sleep. So I spent the next two hours before I did follow her simply holding close to her and letting my thoughts ring with that same revelation:_ I'm in love with a human named Commander Sara Shepard.

I smile at the memory. It happened a little over six years ago. So much has changed in that time, but those thoughts haven't changed at all. When I thought she was dead, I was still in love with her. When I got her back, I went out of my way to show her as much. When the battle with the Shadows was finally over, I proved it absolutely. Not long after, we had devoted our entire lives to each other. Which is why I'm standing outside our house on an unsettled garden world, looking out at the horizon as two of the three moons cross the star-filled sky.

Not for the first time, I find myself thinking _I'm glad I let Sara pick where to settle down._ And not just because she's kept her knack for finding a great view.

As I lean back against the wall, I check the time. It's almost midnight. Usually, she's out here with me by now. She must be checking on our old team again. Taking only a second to wonder when she'll stop worrying about them (which, considering she thinks of them as family, might never happen), I go inside and head to see her myself. I move quietly as I head through the house to our room. When I open the door, I find her looking out the window with her back turned to me.

I smile as I start to step over to her. "Stargazing again?"

She looks away then. Even though she doesn't turn to face me, I can tell that she's smiling at me in return. "Reminds me of the old days."

I come up behind her then, softly pulling her hair away from her shoulder so I can rest my hand over it. "Didn't we come out here to put the old days behind us?" I ask as I move ever closer, delighting in the feeling of my fingers on her skin.

She tilts her head slightly as she reaches to place her hand over mine, almost as if she's inviting me to lean into her again. "Just because you keep moving forward doesn't mean you should stop looking back."

"Fair enough."

Once I've said so, she turns to look at me. Her eyes lock on mine, mesmerizing bright green deep enough to drown in. I've fallen into it so many times and still I always find myself compelled to be drawn back in. Before I met her, I'd never imagined myself associating the word "irresistible" with someone, but she has that effect on me, too strong to deny. Her eyes only shine brighter when she smiles at me. Then she leans to kiss my scars, softly laying her free hand against them as she slowly pulls away. When she does that, it makes me kind of glad that my scars are fading so slowly and, if her predictions turn out to be accurate, might _never_ go away completely. "Don't worry," she says as she stays close, only making her hold on me stronger, "I've never been happier than these last few years with you."

I smirk at the statement. "Glad to know my romantic skills have improved."

"Immensely," she smirks back.

I laugh in response. After offering her brief joyful reaction to it, she lays her head against mine, so I bring the hand not resting on her shoulder around her waist and pull her closer to me. She simply leans against me, letting her eyes fall shut. "Long day?"

"Not really," she answers without even shifting positions, "I just never get tired of this."

As much as I'm enjoying this, I'm actually kind of tired myself and having her weight resting on me is bound to make me collapse. "Well, I think we could do it better on the bed."

"No arguments." She pulls away from me completely then, but she still keeps a hold on my hand, all but clinging to it as she crosses the room with me. She doesn't even let go when she crawls under the covers and leads me to lay down with her, not until I have my arms wrapped tight around her. She then reassumes her previous position, leaning into me completely as I hold her close. "Oh, yeah, this is much better."

I can't keep myself from smiling, even as I lay my head against hers again.

She doesn't move for a few seconds. Then her hand lays itself against my chest, feeling my steady heartbeat the way I always feel hers. There's a precious moment in which neither of us moves, then her hand blindly rises to my scars. I close off everything else when her fingers begin to gently trace my scars, the contact in itself enticingly intimate. Without even realizing it, I move back just enough to look into her eyes again, once again getting lost in the emerald spheres. The only thing that could possibly break this hold she has over me is the very thing that happens next: she stops her light touch only to pull me up against her.

For as long as I can, I devote all my attention to this kiss with her. When she pulls away and starts to take it deeper, I almost let her. But then I notice she's not letting herself come up for air. _She always has had a bad habit of pushing her limits._ Some part of me regretting it the second I do it, I push her off. "Sara…" The second I see her looking down at me with that overwhelming hunger, I almost give in despite my better judgment. Instead, I return her gaze, adoration swelling as I brush her light red hair away from her eyes so that my view of the gleaming green enraptured with my own dark blue is unobstructed. "…pace yourself, alright?"

She merely keeps her gaze locked with mine, the longing entangled with varying degrees of sheer satisfaction. "I can't help it." She lays back down beside me and moves into the perfect position to whisper into my ear: "My heart is yours as yours is mine." The same turian phrase I taught her for our wedding.

I always loved the way her voice danced agilely around my native tongue. About as much as I loved hearing it not filtered by a translator, purely in her own language. Four years of marriage has had its way of bringing us to weed out the translator entirely, but we're far from done with that kind of transition, so the effect of working around it has not yet lost its strength. It still fills me with elation I can't describe.

She plainly delights in my reaction. Then she falls back into our established means of communication: "I always loved you and I always will. Nothing can change that now. …but everything's so… _perfect_ …there are some days I can't help worrying that this is a dream…and, one day, I'll have to wake up."

I wish I couldn't say I didn't sometimes have the same worries. But I do. So I let her know that. Then I take hold of her again and kiss her until the smile I fell in love with returns. "If you do wake up…I'll still be right here next to you." She smiles brighter at the assurance before nestling against me again. I cling to her, unwilling to let go for anything in the galaxy. Somehow, this draws me to fall asleep beside her, her heartbeat ringing with mine.

 _I wake up beside her. For some reason, she wakes up at almost the same time. I'm not complaining, though. Not when it means that the first thing I see when I open my eyes is hers looking back me with a light smile flowing into them. I smile, the back of my hand brushing against her face and down her hair. "Still sleeping alright?"_

 _"What's not drug-induced, yeah," she sighs, "Tell me the painkillers won't be lasting long."_

 _I just give her a look. I was the one who had to talk her into taking the last dose instead of suffering through her spinal injury. "Let's see. My options are to either watch you seize up in absolute pain every five minutes or have you unconscious for eight hours…"_

 _"Shut up," she smirks, grabbing her pillow and whacking me with it. As I toss it back, trading smiles with her, she turns onto her back. "How long have I been in here anyway?"_

"You were injured exactly 47 hours, 19 minutes, and 23 seconds ago," EDI reports, "Dr. Chakwas began tending the injuries almost a full hour later—"

 _"_ Thanks, EDI _." She sighs and lets herself rest, not moving from her current position except to place her hand in mine. "Have I ever mentioned how much I hate hospitals?"_

 _"Well, we've already established they're not fun to fight through," I comment._

 _She laughs briefly. "I'd still rather fight through one than be stuck in it."_

 _"I'd say I can relate since I was just stuck in here a few days ago, but it was just overnight, so…"_

 _"Lucky you."_

 _But I only keep my attention locked on her. The most beautiful human I've ever known, the best soldier I've ever seen in action, the greatest friend anyone could have. And she's mine. "…yeah. Lucky me."_

 _We spend a lot of time together in that med bay. Two days after my impromptu proposal, her injuries from the final battle with the Shadows have healed enough that Chakwas allows us to move her from the med bay to her cabin, though only once Sara has consented to remain in bed for the rest of the week. This also includes a caution against "strenuous activity."_

 _"Just how strenuous?" Sara questions, failing discreetness as she casts a glance in my direction._

 _"I wouldn't recommend even attempting to stand up," Chakwas answers._

 _She doesn't even bother trying to be discreet about how disappointed that answer leaves her. But she doesn't seem to mind once I volunteer to take her back to deck 1 myself and stay with her every minute until she's back on her feet. To the exclusion of all else._

 _Once she's back in her own bed, she lets herself relax. "Much better," she sighs with relief._

 _"Remember," I tell her, taking her hand, "if you need anything, just ask me."_

 _She smirks. "I wonder which of us gets the better end of this deal—me, since you have to do whatever I say, or you, since I'm trapped in this bed and thus completely at your mercy?"_

 _"I think it's pretty much even," I smirk in return before leaning in to kiss her._

 _"Well, a good relationship is built on balance…" she comments before kissing me back._

 _I smile at the gesture, pressing my hand against her hair. As she leans back, letting me softly stroke the light red strands and responding to it as if it actually has a chance of soothing her back to sleep, I make a quick account of her injuries. For the most part, she is on the mend, but that hit to the spine she took is going to take a while to go back to normal, like Chakwas said. "Are you feeling alright?"_

 _"Just as long as you're here," she says softly, not even letting her eyes open as she takes in the gentle motions of my hand through her hair._

 _"I appreciate the gesture, Sara, but I was referring to your_ physical _state."_

 _She sighs. "Aside from the fact that I haven't had a decent meal since we broke the atmosphere over London, yeah, I'm getting there."_

 _The answer brings me to pull my hand away. "Do you need me to get you something to eat?"_

 _She just groans. "I'd hate to ask you to leave when we just got in here."_

 _"No, really, it's fine, I'll just be gone for a few minutes." Before she can argue anymore, I head back to the elevator._

 _Just my luck, though, Joker is in the mess hall when I get there. "Hey! So when were you gonna say something about the engagement? Or did you just expect EDI to tell me?"_

 _I ignore him, fishing through the food stores._

 _He almost makes a comment again but notices that I'm picking up both levo and dextro supplies. "Oh. Right. Still busy. Just wondering, though, did she actually say she was hungry or did your Shepard sense start tingling?"_

 _"It's only funny if I know what you're talking about," I remark before starting to gather up what I have out and take it back to deck 1._

 _"Fair enough. But I gotta ask, how do you two…you know—?"_

 _"Joker," I say as I come up next to him and stop walking, "I have been waiting to say this since the day we met: …shut…_ up _!" When he steps back, holding his hands out as if in surrender, I move past him to the elevator and head back up (making a mental note to add his comment to the list of human references I need to ask Sara about). I head into the cabin, assuming I'm prepared, but stop halfway to her._

 _Sara is turning an arrow in her hand. The first arrow she ever fired at me during her time with the Shadows. "Do you even know how many times I've looked at this thing?"_

 _I sigh. She never has been able to live with the fact that she hurt me—almost_ killed _me. I set down the supplies on the couch and start to step over to her. "…Sara—"_

 _"Don't bother. I'm sick of letting it all get to me." She twists the arrow one last time before looking at me. "Orion is dead. Kendrys is dead. Even the nightmares are gone. It's over. We both need to see that." Before I can even attempt to understand what she means, she takes the arrow tight in both hands and snaps it in half. Lowering the severed ends of the shaft with a sigh, she leans back against the wall then turns to look at me. "Hand me that bucket, would you?"_

 _I follow her gaze and see the container lying by the couch. I pick it up and bring it closer. Silently, though, I wonder why she even keeps a bucket in here._

 _Turns out, I don't have to ask. The second I'm close enough, she throws the broken arrow into the bucket, to which I quickly set it down. Once I do, she turns to look at a box lying on her bedside table and hits it sharply enough to toss it into the bucket as well. I glance down into the container and find that the box contains everything else we brought back from the Shadows' bases besides the data in EDI's memory banks. "I'm not carrying around something I'm trying to forget. …the Shadows have to be out of our lives for good." She then reaches over the side of the bed to where she usually keeps a sidearm for emergencies. …and, when she pulls back, she's holding up an incendiary arrow._

 _I instantly realize what she's about to do. "Whoa! How much medication are you on right now?!"_

 _She just smirks with an almost psychotic glee before throwing the arrow down into the bucket with just enough force to set it off. "Absolutely none."_

 _I consent then, stepping back as the confined fire starts. After a few seconds, I head into the bathroom. When I come back out, I bring a glass of water over the bucket and dump it out, putting out the fire._

 _She scoffs. "Killjoy."_

 _"Psycho."_

 _"Oh, you love me for it."_

 _I simply smirk before setting the empty glass aside, kicking the bucket to the wall, and bringing the supplies I gathered over to the bed. She snatches the first sign of levo food that comes into her reach and starts biting into it as I sit down beside her, but she does make a point of pushing the covers aside enough to signal for me to get in with her. I smile as I do so. And even as she pulls out every piece of levo food I brought and pushes the rest my way, she lays her head on my shoulder and leans into me. In response, I wrap my arm around her waist to keep her close._

 _"It means a lot that you've stuck around me for so long," she says as she finishes the food and starts to relax, wrapping her arm around mine._

 _I smile, resting my head in her hair. "What can I say? Everyone else in the galaxy is boring by comparison."_

 _She answers with a smirk and a playful nudge._

 _"Speaking of which," I comment, taking my arm out from around her waist to take hold of her hand instead, "no more fights in the tunnel systems, alright?"_

 _She smirks again. "Deal. From now on, only the gardens, electronic shops, and warship CICs."_

 _"Don't forget the antique stores."_

 _"Only if they're classy."_

 _"You know me so well."_

 _She laughs. I revel in the sound, wishing it didn't have to end. I always loved hearing her laugh. Before we became a couple, I almost never got to hear it at all. I still remember the first time I heard it, five days after we met. Ash had made some comment and I heard the responding laugh from across the cargo bay. I knew that I thought it was nice to hear it, but only now do I realize how my heart jumped, as if I knew right then that I loved her and wanted to bring her that sort of joy every day for the rest of my life. Hearing it now…_

 _I can't fight off the need to let these feelings take over again. I look down at the hand grasping mine. Softly, I begin to trace the lines with the tip of my talon. When this leads me to the scar hidden in her palm, she reaches over her other hand and runs her fingers over mine, feeling along every bone. I let her carry on for a moment before moving both of my hands to her. Wrapping my left arm around her shoulders, I reach my right over to run my hand down her arm. She leans into my hold on her, taking in the sensation of my gentle touch. Turning my eyes from it to her, I let her fill my senses again. Growing closer every second, I finally start to kiss her._

 _She wills herself not to turn into it, forcing me to keep the affectionate gesture confined to the side of her face instead of letting it deepen. "Garrus, you heard the doctor."_

 _"She said 'no strenuous activity.'" My hand then falls away from her arm to her waist, carefully pressing against it to bring her closer as I move as close to her as I can get. "Let me know when it starts getting strenuous."_

 _She lets a small smile through. As I keep going, she closes her eyes to take it in, gently laying her hand against my scars. After a few minutes, she turns to cut me off entirely, moving her hand to take hold of me. "…here." Then she lays her head back against the wall and carefully brings me up against her, leading us to truly kiss. The fact that she can barely move doesn't matter anymore; both of us have our entire hearts focused on this embrace. I lose myself in it. I know now what I became certain of the day I first told her I loved her: she's my everything._

 _When Dr. Chakwas finally gives her the all-clear a few days later, I stay at her side as she gets back on her feet again. As is to be expected, it takes her a minute to regain the ability to stay upright, so she has to lean on me for a moment. Of course, even when she has her balance back, she keeps a hold on my hand._

 _Once she's back to her old self again, she has us dock in an Alliance port on Earth's surface. We had made plans before that last fight to come see her home-world together before heading out again once it was all over. So she gives the crew a much-deserved shore leave and takes me out to the city called Los Angeles._

 _The first time we come to a street she knows, she looks across it almost fondly. "Huh. I was six when I first came here. Stayed for three years before going on the run again." She steps over to a wall, softly running her fingers across it. "Reapers sure tore it up, but it's been pretty well-repaired."_

 _"Anything like you remember it?" I ask as I step up beside her._

 _"I guess. It's been a long time." Still, when she pulls her hand back from the wall, she turns to look for something in particular. She finds it. "…wow. That's it."_

 _"What?"_

 _"…that's the alley where I first learned to shoot a bow. Wasn't until I left this city that I touched a gun for the first time." She moves closer to the alley, looking it over. "This part I can remember. Doesn't look like it's changed much at all."_

 _I look at the alley curiously. I might be able to picture her in here at six years old learning how to use her favored weapon…if I knew what she'd looked like at the time and could possibly envision her missing a shot (for all I know, she's always been a natural and hit the target with the first arrow she ever fired—can't say I'd be surprised…she always was the better shot). Of course, that thought makes me realize that her bow really is her favored weapon and reminds me of something she said back in London. "Hey, wait a minute. Didn't you say you were going to start carrying your bow around everywhere now?"_

 _She answers by giving me a look and pulling up the right side of her shirt enough to show that the retracted bow is clipped to her belt. If I know her, she also has a small supply of arrows in her boots._

 _"OK, that makes more sense."_

 _She smirks before again hiding the seemingly unimposing weapon (_ I _wouldn't be intimidated by it if I hadn't seen her use it). Then she looks around. "Funny. People didn't usually go through this part of town when I was in it and now it's practically abandoned."_

 _"Probably for the best," I comment, "When you take us on shore leave, you tend to attract mercenaries, blow up fish tanks—"_

 _Before I can finish, she grabs me and pushes me back against the alley wall, immediately pressing herself against me. Caught by surprise, it takes me a second before I give in, closing my eyes and wrapping myself around her. She lets me hold her here, bringing us in deeper and deeper. At times like this, I wonder how I ever survived without her._

 _As she pulls back, I keep close to her, smiling. "_ Two _reasons to like this alleyway."_

 _She snickers. Which is, in itself, alluring. Then she steps back, keeping a hold on my hand. "Come on. If we're gonna visit one of Earth's most famous cities, we might as well see the sights."_

 _She's true to her word. I can't deny that what she shows me is spectacular. There are even select few times when we come to a place she visited as a child and, as if they're spying on us to make sure we don't get into any sort of trouble, a few times we run into our crewmates. Sara doesn't seem to mind, though. She focuses on navigating the city in the span of a single day. She does consistently go pretty far out of her way to find a place that has dextro food, but, to be fair, I had to do the same for her on Palaven. When the sun starts setting, though, she lights up with sheer excitement, grabs me by the arm, and practically drags me down a city block to a nearby park._

 _"Come on!" Sara says, pulling me past what I'd say is an abandoned playground._

 _"Sara, I have trouble keeping up with you when you're_ not _jumping around like a…a…"_

 _"Jackrabbit?"_

 _"…yeah, whatever that is."_

 _"Maybe_ I _should start keeping a list of stuff to explain to you. And vids I need to get you to watch." With a shake of her head, she lets go of my arm and steps aside._

 _I start rubbing my arm where she grabbed it. "I think you're forgetting your own strength sometimes. Pull any harder and you'll take a bone with you."_

 _She simply sits down in the grass and gestures for me to take her side._

 _I step over and sit down beside her. "So why'd you pull me all the way here?"_

 _She moves closer to me, but she keeps her eyes fixed forward. "Didn't wanna miss the view."_

 _Confused for a second, I follow her gaze._

… _well, I can understand her excitement. The sky changes color around Sol as it goes down. Looking directly at a sun would be hazardous to the eyes at any other time, but seeing it from between the trees laid out in front of us makes it a fairly amazing sight. Judging by the way Sara curls up against me, it's clear that humans consider it a rather romantic sight. The revelation leads me to smile, wrapping my arms around her and laying my head on hers as I watch the gold across the sky slowly dim._

 _Just before it starts to grow dark, she sighs and pulls away from me. "I'm sure building up a habit for exploring old clichés with you."_

 _"You have a way of making them interesting," I comment._

 _She smirks at me, shaking her head again as she gets up and walks over to the trees. "I came to this park, too. When I was six. This one hasn't actually changed much." As she says so, she starts running her finger over the leaves._

 _"Can't say the same for you," I point out as I get to my feet._

 _"Well, yeah, but show me one person who doesn't change in nearly 30 years," she shrugs as she picks up a nearby fruit._

 _I step over and take it. "I mean it. You started out as an orphan fighting to survive—"_

 _"And now I'm a soldier…fighting to survive." With that, she steps away and starts looking over the swing set._

 _"…fair enough." I turn to look at the fruit in my hand. It seems unremarkable, but… Smirking at my idea, I turn to face her. "Sara!" When she turns to look at me, I toss the fruit into the air._

 _The second she realizes what I'm doing, she rolls away from the swings, pulls out her bow, snaps it open, pries an arrow from her boot, aims it for a split second, and lets it go. The arrow flies through the air in an arc and stabs the fruit down the middle before embedding itself in a nearby tree._

 _I smile as I turn back to her. "Never get tired of that."_

 _"Obviously," she remarks before retracting the bow and putting it away._

 _"You sure you don't wanna go a few rounds?" I pick up another one of the fruits from the grass by the tree it dropped from and start tossing and catching it. "Keep yourself in practice?"_

 _She scoffs. "Please. In absolute silence, I could do that_ blindfolded _."_

 _"You need silence?"_

 _"I listen for the target. If I hear anything else, it'll take the arrow instead."_

 _I look at the fruit in my hand. "You can…_ hear _this?"_

 _She steps over to me. Once she's close enough, she wraps her fingers around mine. "Close your eyes," she whispers._

 _Her voice, her touch, her eyes take me over. Without even thinking, I do what she asks. For three seconds, silence takes hold around me. Then I hear air moving by my ear. Or rather, something moving through the air. I open my eyes to see what it is._

 _Sara is tossing the fruit now and the wind is twisting around it with every rise and fall. "Hear it?"_

That's _what she was talking about targeting? I look between her and the fruit in astonishment. "You can hear that well enough to fire on it?"_

 _"Probably not farther than about five meters away. Even with my senses heightened, that's kind of a stretch. But, yeah, I could hear it. Or if one of these was falling off the branch, I could hear the stem snap and target that. It's really difficult, though, and…incredibly dangerous for any bystanders." Taking a bite out of the fruit in her hand, she steps away._

 _I smile as I watch her. "Has anyone ever told you you're kind of amazing?"_

 _As an answer, she takes the fruit and throws it into the air. Then, in the space of two seconds, pulls out her bow, snaps it open again, grabs another arrow, aims, and fires. The arrow flies up to pierce the fruit then hits the ground eight meters ahead of her. She then proceeds to step over and retrieve it, tossing the fruit aside. "Yeah, I've heard."_

 _I smile as I step up behind her and wrap my arms around her waist. "And you're all mine."_

 _She smiles back as she turns to wrap her arms around me in return. "Ambitious, are we, Vakarian? As I recall,_ you're _all_ mine _."_

 _I simply reach up to smooth back her hair, watching as her eyes light up in response. "I should think those two would be intertwined."_

 _She then reaches up her hand to me, sliding the backs of her fingers gently across my scars. "Then can't we just belong to each other?"_

 _I lean into her touch as she leans into mine. That should be proof we already do. Then the hand not running its fingers through her hair takes hold of hers and feels the ring in place on it. I smile again as I feel it there. "Seems that we will soon."_

 _She holds up her hand so she can look at it. "Right. Still processing." She laughs for about half a second before stepping back to the swing set. "Can't believe we're actually doing this."_

 _"Well, I can't say I blame you. It's fairly unbelievable._ I'm _still trying to get it through my head and I'm the one that asked you!"_

 _"Guess we'll get used to it together…" Sara smirks as she sits down on the swing._

 _"…when we're husband and wife," I say as I take the one next to her._

 _She leans against the chain as she looks over at me. "…I can't wait to spend the rest of my life with you…" Once she's said so, she reaches over to take my hand. "…_ kalwen _."_

 _I look at her in shock. When she answers with something between a smirk and a genuine smile, I find myself laughing briefly in response. If ever I doubted that she loves me the same way I love her, I can't anymore. Holding her hand tight, I sit here with her as we lose track of time._

 _After a while, she gets off the swing and lies down in the grass to look up at the stars. I lie down beside her and listen as she points out constellations and tells their stories like that night shortly after I got her back. With each one, I draw closer to her, finally taking hold of her entirely. When she turns her attention from the stars to me, though, I'm forced to remind her that it's getting late and we need to head back to the_ Normandy _. She consents and gets up to lead me back. Since "it's dark and I don't want you getting lost," she keeps hold of my hand the whole way there. But I can't help but notice that she still doesn't let go even when we reach the docks. Once we're back in her cabin ("You can says 'ours' now, Garrus. It's not like I'm letting you sleep anywhere else."), she starts to get comfortable. It's been a long day for us both, so I start to step aside and give her space to relax. I don't make it four steps before she grabs me and pulls me back, all but throwing me onto the bed beside her. But I also don't make any attempt to stop her when she wraps herself around me and picks up where we left off._

 _The next place we go is Palaven. We both think we should tell my family in person about our new plans. I can only hope it'll go as well as our last trip. Solana seemed to get along well with Sara, as was to be expected, and was pretty much unsurprised at the news of what our relationship truly was. Even my dad seemed to be OK with the idea of me dating a human Spectre once I made it clear how much she really meant to me. He'd seen me almost every day for 11 of the 13 months I spent grieving her. He knew I needed her. Of course, the idea that I'm actually planning to_ marry her _might be a bit more difficult to process._

 _I step up to the door first. Right as I get ready to open it, though, I notice that Sara isn't standing beside me anymore. I quickly turn around and look for her. I find her standing a few meters away, looking out at the horizon._ Something's wrong. _I walk over to her. "Sara?"_

 _She sighs. "…this feels…odd. I've never had a family and now…"_

… _and now she's about to become part of mine. I guess I can see how that'd be a bit overwhelming. "Hey…" I take her hand in mine and bring her to face me. "…the crew's always been your family, remember? We're just making my part legally binding."_

 _She laughs. "True." She places her other hand against mine, holding it to her heart. "I've finally found where I belong."_

 _I smile, feeling her heartbeat against my hand. When my eyes meet hers as well, I move closer to her—_

 _The sound of a door opening draws me to step back from her, letting go of her hand. I turn and see Solana standing by the door. "I thought I saw a human through the window and I took a wild guess who was there."_

 _"Good instincts," Sara smirks before walking over to her, me right behind her._

 _"I wasn't expecting to see you two back so soon," Dad comments as we come in and let Solana close the door behind us. "Speaking of which, didn't you say something about an emergency a couple weeks ago?"_

 _"Long story. Taken care of. …though that brings us to why we're here."_

 _"Please tell me nothing bad happened," Solana sighs, "You didn't see what this one was like before he brought you back here."_

 _Sara looks at me. "No, I pretty much did."_

 _The look she gives me at least reinforces my determination. So before I can lose my nerve again, I come out with it: "That's why I asked her to marry me."_

 _Solana is definitely pleased with the news. If I didn't know any better, I'd say she's on the verge of saying "Finally!" As it is, she smiles. "Wow. If you'd told me three years ago…"_

 _"What, you wouldn't have been excited you were getting a human sister-in-law?" Sara smirks._

 _I shake my head at the exchange as the two keep at it. Then I see Dad nodding to the other side of the room. Reluctantly, I step over._

 _"You're sure about this?" Dad asks once we're both out of earshot._

 _Guess I should've seen_ this _coming. In fact, I kind of did. "I've never been more sure of anything."_

 _"I know you've been through a lot together, but this is a really big—"_

 _"I already lost her twice," I cut in, just barely keeping myself from snapping. When he doesn't say anything, I turn to look back in the other room, where Solana and Sara are talking, I think it's safe to assume, about me. "…I love her. Nothing you can say is going to change my mind."_

 _Dad glances over at Sara for a moment. I'm not sure what to expect now so I just wait for him to come out with it. Finally, he turns back to me… "…then I suppose I have no reason to try."_

 _Before I know it, I'm looking at him in utter astonishment. If I'd broken this kind of news before my last day as Archangel, the effects would've been disastrous. Now he seems closer to approving than I've ever seen him. It's almost unbelievable. Finally, I find myself almost coming close to smirking. Once again, I've come to a situation I to some degree dreaded and found it playing out better than I ever would've expected. "I, uh…appreciate that."_

 _He barely responds before Sara steps over. "Solana wants to talk to you."_

 _"Of course," I sigh before stepping past her to my sister. When I'm there, though, I look back and see Sara talking to my dad for a moment before he steps away._

 _"I'd say you've made the right choice," Solana comments._

 _I smile. "I know I have."_

 _I spend the next few hours around the house, spending some time with my family. When I come out of the house, what I see draws me to pause. Sara stands off to the side a ways, her quiver strapped on as she draws her bow and fires arrow after arrow at a nearby tree. I take a moment to watch, not even bothering to wonder why she's doing it. I'm content to stick with observation. But when the last arrow she fires is aimed so perfectly that it actually_ splits the first one in half _, I have to comment. "Wow. Remind me never to get on your bad side."_

 _She just smirks as she pulls out another arrow. "You? I'm not convinced that's possible."_

 _I smile as I come up to her. Then I place my right hand on her shoulder and my left hand on her arm, leaning in close enough to breathe in the scent of her hair. "I have my ways," I whisper into her ear._

 _She simply smiles back. "Garrus? …you're throwing me off again."_

 _I step back, but not before running my hand through her hair to toss it over her shoulder and out of her way._

 _She turns back to her aim, draws the bow back, and fires. The arrow hits the target dead-on again, though this one manages to keep all the previous arrows intact. Seeing this, she retracts her bow and sets it and her quiver aside, stepping over to retrieve the shafts from the bark._

 _"Is there a reason you're out here abusing the local flora?" I ask as I examine her bow._

 _"Just trying to clear my head," she answers as she pries the arrows out, noticeably dropping the one she broke, "I've got a lot of things to put behind me." She then tosses a brief smile my way. "…about as much as I have to look forward to."_

 _I smile back as I turn the bow in my hands. "So I suppose you really will be taking this with you everywhere from now on?"_

 _"No reason not to. …speaking of which, you should probably warn your dad and Solana not to try touching it before they get electrocuted—I only programmed my biometrics and the squad's in when I had EDI put in the countermeasure."_

 _"You actually trusted us to touch it? I'm shocked."_

 _She smirks before placing her arrows back in the quiver and taking her bow back. "I was just going to do me and you, but I didn't wanna risk it if I dropped it and one of the others tried to toss it back to me."_

 _Then my reaction becomes genuine. "…so you actually did trust me with it."_

 _She just looks at me with a sincere fondness I doubt I can replicate. "I trusted you with my heart a long time ago. How could I not trust you with this now?"_

 _Knowing this is true, that she trusts me that much, ensures what I should already know: how much she loves me. Which reminds me just how much I love her. I love her because she's brave, selfless, strong, brilliant, beautiful, and the best shot I've ever seen. Because she's Sara Shepard, hero of the galaxy, and she was someone I could trust to hold my heart. All of these thoughts ignite the fire inside me that only she can bring out. Plus, the fact that the protective suit she has to wear in Palaven's weak magnetic field is almost skin-tight doesn't exactly do anything to keep me from losing control. This is one of those times I need to show her how much I care about her._ Or to take hold of her and never let go.

 _Sara finally tosses her quiver over her shoulder and starts to walk away._

 _Before she can, I grab her by the arm and pull her back, drawing her in to kiss her. She doesn't exactly fight me off. Not even when I wrap my arms around her and pull her so close to me that anyone weaker might suffocate. As she eventually pulls back, the feeling of the moment as it fades, of her heartbeat against my own, of her hand softly running down my scars takes me over. And makes me even more certain that I want to spend the rest of my life in moments like this one. "…marry me."_

 _She looks at me for a moment before giving me a soft smile. "I thought you'd never ask."_

 _We spend the rest of the day on Palaven before heading back to the_ Normandy _. Every night for the next several months, we start making our plans. She tells me about how humans traditionally perform marriages and I tell her about how turians do it. Somehow, we manage to single out what to use from both. She even starts talking about it with Liara and Ash and even EDI and goes so far as to discuss it with Tali during her calls (Miranda, Samara, and Solana get involved, too, but to a lesser extent); when I question this, she makes some comment about how species doesn't have an effect on "the bride's closest female friends inevitably getting involved."_

 _One night, I come into the captain's cabin and find her looking over a small collection of flowers. "…what are you doing?"_

 _"I was never the kind of girl who spent all her time picturing her wedding," she says offhandedly as she fingers the petals on a small pink flower, "Never knew there were so many details to worry about. I'm actually supposed to carry a bunch of flowers during the ceremony and…now I'm wishing I'd been thinking about this beforehand."_

 _I step over and take the flower from her. "…and I'm starting to see why you've been talking about this with Liara."_

 _"I don't suppose there's any turian marital tradition that could negate this?"_

 _"Doubtful."_

 _She groans under her breath as I toss the flower aside. "Maybe I just need to start thinking about something else." She steps aside for a moment. She makes it halfway to the fish tank before freezing. "Wait a minute!" She whirls around to look at me. "We've been going over details for weeks and we still haven't said_ where _we're doing this."_

 _I think that over for a second. She's right, but… "…I kind of assumed we didn't need to."_

 _She seems confused but catches on. "Citadel?"_

 _"Citadel."_

 _She smirks. "Well. I guess after that, we'll never have to worry about any bad memories coming back there."_

 _It's true, we have been through a lot there. Which got to be a bit much for her the last time we were there (though, to be fair, we were under threat of assassins at the time…). But that was months ago and she's right: what happens next will finally put those days behind us._

 _If this actually works._

 _I wish I could say I haven't had a few doubts, but I've always had concerns about how the two of us could have a future together. Even denying the possibility of the galaxy eventually needing Commander Shepard back, how are we supposed to—_

 _"Garrus?" Sara snaps me out of it, "Something wrong?"_

 _I was_ really _hoping she wouldn't ask that… "…it's just…" I find myself pouring my heart out to her beyond my control, "I don't know how we're going to make this work. The species barrier is always going to be there. Or suppose the next 'big bad' really does come after us and we're not ready." I step back to the wall, leaning against it. "And…what if we really can't get biology to cooperate? How—?"_

 _She silences my mounting concerns when she reaches over to place her hand over mine. "Do you remember what I told you after Aephus?"_

 _I look at her. I remember it, alright:_ I love you no matter what, Garrus Vakarian. And nothing will ever change that.

 _"Let me add to that. I love you_ because _you're Garrus Vakarian. I don't care what species you are."_

 _The way she says it, I can't deny how much she means it. That puts several of my worries out of my mind. I finally give her a light smile. "And I love you because you're Sara Shepard. Not because of what you've done."_

 _She simply looks at me for a moment. "…you have no idea how much that means to me."_

 _"Oh, I've got a fair idea."_

 _She keeps her eyes on mine. Locked in her gaze, I see it as her eyes shine for me…and as that light fades. "…Garrus…"_

 _I sigh. "…I know. I won't bring it up again."_

 _"No, not that. You need to hear this." She moves closer to me, wrapping the arm not clutching mine tight around me. "I care about you too much to feel that way. I don't care what happens afterwards or if 'you can't give me what I deserve' or if science itself dictates we shouldn't be together. …I only want you. Nobody—and_ nothing _—else. I couldn't survive a single day without you now." She buries herself against me, letting me hold her close. Then she shifts enough to whisper into my ear. She says "I love you, Garrus Vakarian." like always…but she says it in turian. No translator required._

 _So I run my hand through her hair, pushing it back behind her ear. And I whisper "I love you, Sara Shepard." to her in her own tongue._

 _Her breath catches and I feel her smile in response. Even though I can't see her in this position, I can practically envision the way her eyes light up with it. Just the thought of it makes my heart pound fiercely with joy. When my hand finds its way up to her shoulder, though, she pulls back. "Sorry. If we're gonna be doing…_ that _, I should probably go give Liara these flowers back." She steps over to the bed and picks them up._

 _I sigh. "There's always something."_

 _"We should've learned that by now." Then she comes to the last flower, a blue one, and stops moving, turning it between her fingers._

 _When she doesn't move for five seconds, I almost start worrying there's a Thorian-level reaction coming. "Sara?"_

 _She simply looks at the flower for one more second before prying a white one out from the rest, holding the two separate. "I think I just solved my floral dilemma." She starts for the door._

 _I understand her reaction now, but something's still confusing about it: "Why the sudden decision?"_

 _She looks at me from the door… "…it's the same color as your eyes." Then she leaves the room._

 _I watch her with a smile. Leave it to her to make the smallest details mean something. Shaking my head at the thought, I step over to pick up a datapad and find a way to pass the time until she comes back. I end up standing at the foot of the bed with my back to the door, glancing absently at locations on the Citadel as I consider what lies ahead for us._

 _Those thoughts (and any others I might have) fade away when I feel her behind me, sliding her hand up my arm to my face. As I turn to meet her eyes and let her toss the datapad aside, she brings herself against me with a smile. "Let's stop worrying about the future for a minute…and remind ourselves why we're making plans." Then she wraps her arms around me and kisses me. When I respond in kind, she practically jumps on top of me, throwing us both onto the bed._

 _Somehow, we wind up asleep in each other's arms an hour later. Yet something wakes me up when I realize she's not lying next to me anymore. The lights in the cabin are down, telling me it's the middle of the night. But Sara sits near the center of the bed, looking at something on her omni-tool. I bring myself to sit up beside her and look over her shoulder to see what it is: a picture of an animal with silver fur, golden eyes, and very sharp teeth._

 _Sara doesn't move, but she still notices I'm watching her. "It's a wolf. I always thought they were beautiful."_

 _I look at the picture again. I can see why she'd think so, I guess._

 _She sighs, closing down her omni-tool entirely. "You remember what I said about them? Back during the war?"_

 _Wolves…that's right, I definitely remember that._ There are some animals, wolves especially, that find a mate and then, if that mate dies…never love again. _"Yeah, I do."_

 _"I don't know why, but I just—" Suddenly, she gasps, grabbing her head. The Reaper signal again._

 _I quickly place my hand on her shoulder and bring her to face me, ready to catch her should it prove to be too much. It hasn't since Aephus, but that doesn't stop me from worrying._

 _She simply looks at me for a moment, her eyes softly lit by the reflection from the fish tank in the absence of any other lights. After that moment is over, she places her hand over mine, pushing it away from her shoulder so she can lock her fingers around it. "What I said a few hours ago doesn't begin to cover it. The way I love you, it…" For the first time I can think of, I see her stumble to find the words. So she shakes it off, gives up on trying to explain, and just says it: "I don't just want to marry you. I want us to be mated for life."_

 _To anyone else in the entire galaxy, that'd probably seem like a colossal proposal or at least like an even bigger commitment than the marriage itself. But what I tell her is the absolute truth: "In our case, I'm not convinced there's that big a distinction." I couldn't recover enough to consider moving on 13 months after losing her. If I were to spend the rest of my life without her once we'd already come to this point, the idea of letting someone else in where she once was would be_ beyond _unthinkable._

 _She seems to think the same thing if the way she lets a small smile through is anything to go on. And, knowing her the way I do, I'd say it is. "Yeah, and I don't suppose there's any sort of ceremony or ritual that could bind us to each other that way."_

 _"I guess we could always make something up," I comment._

 _She scoffs. "Like our own personal tradition? Can't say I would object." She then looks to the side and thinks that over… "…think about it…and we'll make the call after the wedding."_

 _I nod. "OK."_

 _So she sighs and crawls back into the bed, silently signaling me to follow. "It feels kind of weird, doesn't it? Knowing we're about to get married. Talking about our future together—actually being together without jumping across the galaxy finding new things to kill."_

 _"The adventure has a way of coming to us," I comment as I wrap my arm around her waist, "But, yeah, I never would've pictured us here."_

 _"I don't know, the more I think about this, the more I wonder if we should—"_

 _"_ Shepard _…" Saying it keeps her from letting any worries of her own come through. It also makes her stop moving. I take advantage of that and lean in to kiss her, lightly and briefly but enough to make both our hearts respond. As I pull back, I softly slide my hand down the side of her face, pushing her hair back. "Just go back to sleep."_

 _She smiles one last time before laying her head down on my shoulder and complying._

 _I hold her close, pondering our exchange for a few moments before following her. It goes through my mind every day for weeks. For a few days, I mostly consider ways to go through with this "post-marital rite" she's proposing but can't think of anything. I almost wind up asking EDI for ideas or just plain searching on the extranet—both of which I decide against, for obvious reasons. Since Sara said to save it for the actual day and she clearly isn't talking about it to anyone (me least of all), I don't bring it up in conversation; as such, any time we talk about our plans is now populated with more of those details she's just started worrying about. Five days before our set date, though, I still have nothing and almost go to tell her as much. Two minutes before I go through with that plan, I have a new one and start working to implement it. We dock on the Citadel the next morning. The next three days are spent preparing for the ceremony itself._

 _The night before, I step into the cabin on deck 1 and give her the report: "OK, everyone's here and there hasn't been any sort of crisis yet, so I think we're set—"_

 _"Good." She then steps over and shoves a pack into my arms, pushing me almost back to the door. "I'll let EDI take over from here, you need to get to deck 3 in the next five minutes if you're gonna sleep tonight."_

 _Confused, I look down at the pack. It's full of all the things I've moved into the cabin practically since we started dating. "You're kicking me out?!"_

 _"Just for the night. Human culture dictates it's bad luck for the groom to see the bride on the wedding day before the actual ceremony."_

 _"Since when are you superstitious?"_

 _"Normally, I'm not. But since this is the only time in my entire life I'm gonna have one of these—and we're gonna be spending the next week alone together anyway—indulge me." She then proceeds to push me back into the hall and close the door._

 _I stand there staring at the door for ten seconds before sighing and turning to go through the elevator. Strangely, what's coming tomorrow isn't what makes it hard to fall asleep an hour later; it's the suddenly unfamiliar surroundings of my old bunk and the fact that no one is occupying a space beside me. Which is also why I wake up almost panicking. I made it a habit after Omega to reach for her when I wake up and this time there's no one there. For the few seconds it takes me to remember why I'm not on deck 1, that's enough to make fears I haven't felt in months—fears that all this has been a dream and what happened on Omega didn't happen the way I remember or worse—come crashing in on me. The second I remember why I'm in my old bunk again, though, those fears are the last thing on my mind._

 _I go through the next few hours in anticipation. With every minute, the realization grows stronger: Sara and I are going to be married by the time the day is over. I'm about to give my entire life to my_ kalwen _. It's kind of hard to believe. I don't see any of the girls in all this time, not even Solana, so I figure they must be with Sara. When everyone starts gathering (since the locations that actually hold meaning to us largely consist of restricted areas we snuck into, we had to arrange this at a hall on Zakera Ward that's usually used for weddings—oddly_ normal _for us but Sara didn't seem to mind), Ash even pulls me aside long enough to comment on this: "You're a lucky guy, Vakarian. Don't screw it up."_

I'm not gonna screw this up, _I say to myself as the ceremony starts,_ I just have to…

 _That's when Sara walks in._

…have to…whoa…

 _She's more beautiful in this moment than I've ever seen her before (which makes me suddenly glad that she enforced that human tradition—it makes this moment that much better). Her light red hair falls over her shoulders in soft waves. A silver necklace hangs over her collar with emeralds and diamonds that only make her bright green eyes seem brighter. The pure white dress she's wearing fits her perfectly. And, like she mentioned, she's carrying several of the blue and white flowers she picked from Liara's collection. I'm so caught up in the sight that I don't realize I'm even reacting to it until she smiles at the sight of me, causing her eyes to truly light up, and I find myself smiling back. When she comes up beside me, her hand finds its way to mine practically on its own. I return the grasp, not caring if anyone notices._

 _All the plans we've made over the past few months come to life now. It starts the way most turian weddings do—basically an entreaty for the spirits to watch over us and such. Part of me wonders if Sara would've consented to this part had the human equivalent been possible for us. Her religious standings would've required her eldest living relative to be involved and she has no family. Not legally, anyway. Though I did notice that she made some comment about Anderson before she essentially said "Let's just do it your way."_

 _The ceremony itself pretty much jumps back and forth between turian and human traditions. Appropriate, if a little confusing to some. It's a good thing we've been making these plans for so long because it goes better than I expected it would. As the life-changing moment draws closer, I find myself turning my attention to her again. Seeing her now makes everything we've been through together worth it. Seeing her like this is a moment I could stay in forever._

 _Then she turns to me and I see the same emotions alight in her eyes. She might never have been one to dream of this day, but no one can deny how happy she is it's come. Finally, she raises her hold on my hand, turning her own to the position at which I can feel her pulse through my fingers. As if that weren't enough to make me come alive with joy, she follows the gesture with the turian "vow" (that's what humans call their version of this part of the ceremony so that's what she took to calling it) she all but made me teach her: "To the end of my days, I will care for, guard, and love you, Garrus Vakarian. My heart is yours as yours is mine."_

 _Hearing her say it in perfect turian without the aid of a translator makes every organ I have respond ecstatically. Yet still I bring myself to give the same promise to her: "To the end of my days, I will care for, guard, and love you, Sara Shepard. My heart is yours as yours is mine." As she pulls her hand away, I keep my eyes on hers long enough to repeat a very specific part of that "vow" with much greater emphasis:_ I love you, Sara Shepard.

 _She smiles softly, the resounding look in her eyes simply saying_ I know.

 _I should hope she does. …that's the last time I (or anyone, really) will ever call her "Shepard."_

 _Less than a minute later, we finally come to the moment I've been waiting for. My favorite suggestion from her traditions was this, the ending: the "vows" we just made are accepted…and we kiss for the first time as husband and wife._

 _In five minutes, Tali is hugging Sara delightedly. "I'm so happy for you!"_

 _"Come on, Sparks," James nudges her, "I think we've all had enough of the emotional stuff for one day."_

 _"I'll say," Wrex comments, "Krogan don't go to this much trouble."_

 _"Not from what you've told me," Sara smirks, "Speaking of which, how many kids do you and Bakara have now?"_

 _Wrex just sneers at the wall. Sara has to be the only person I know that can "push his buttons" and get away with it._

 _"We are all happy for you both," Liara steps up, "We just…show it in different ways."_

 _"No kidding," I remark._

 _"Hey," Jack smirks, "I'm just glad I'm not gonna be on the ship when you two get back on. I see more than enough PDA as is."_

 _I respond to that by looking curiously to Sara._

 _Sara sighs. "'Public displays of affection.'"_

 _"Oh. Well, I guess I'd be lying if I said we didn't do that on a regular basis."_

 _"I'd like to think we have a reasonable excuse. Especially now."_

 _"Learn from your history," Samara states plainly, "Cherish your time together as much as you can before fate is allowed a chance to separate you once again."_

 _"Believe me, we will," Sara says as she takes my hand._

 _"Well then," Ashley smirks, "guess you should be off acting on that, huh?"_

 _"And miss Joker and EDI's inevitable commentary on the new turian-human marital status? Perish the thought."_

 _So the next hour is spent with our crewmates, mostly with the expected humorous remarks about how Sara and I have, according to Joker, "become each other's 'ball and chain'" (that particular comment being met by a light punch from Ashley and a slightly less gentle kick to the foot from Sara herself). When the time comes for us to go our separate ways again, Jacob makes the unfortunate observation that this may be the last time we're all in the same place for a while, which brings Sara to ensure that all of them will be staying in contact before sadly going into somewhat-more-extensive goodbyes._

 _"Take care of each other, alright?" Miranda says._

 _"That was in the vows," Sara comments. Then she smiles and hugs Miranda. "We will."_

 _We both make similar exchanges with Jacob, Jack, Samara, Wrex, and Grunt as they head out. Joker, EDI, Ash, James, and Liara simply head back to the_ Normandy _with the rest of the crew. Tali, however, hesitates to leave, only consenting to go when Sara reminds her that Rannoch needs her more than we do and hugs her like any good best friend would._ Or a sister, _I find myself thinking with a smile, one I keep up as Tali hugs me before going on her way. Once everyone has cleared out, Sara takes me by the hand again and we leave._

 _I step up to the door to our apartment on the Silversun strip first, opening the door. "Don't take this the wrong way, but I'm actually kind of glad that's over—"_

 _Before I can say anything else or even turn to face her, she jumps into my arms. I might've been able to catch her if I'd seen it coming, but instead we both hit the floor just inside the apartment, letting the door close inches from our feet. She laughs at this for a moment. "Don't worry. I feel the same way." Then she shifts position just enough to wrap herself around me as she kisses me again and I respond in kind. After some immeasurable amount of time, she brings herself to move back. "Well. We've got the whole next week alone together in here. What's the plan?"_

 _"Oh, I had a few ideas," I smirk as I sit up beside her._

 _She simply smiles. Then she thinks of something. "Before we do anything, though…" She brings herself to her feet, leading me to follow her example. "…we still have one last business to take care of."_

 _Right. "So…how do you want to handle this?"_

 _She considers this for a moment. "We should both have something by now, right? You go first."_

 _I nod. "OK. I'll just…"_

 _"If you need a minute to get ready or something, that's fine. Gives me a chance to get out of this dress."_

 _"Really?" I groan, over-exaggerating my already significant disappointment._

 _She smirks. "If it bothers you that much, I'll keep it on hand."_

 _I consider that for a moment, taking in the sight of her one last time. "…no, it's fine. I'd rather look back on it like this."_

 _She understands that. "Alright. Give me a few minutes, it's tighter than it looks."_

 _"I find that hard to believe."_

 _"Shut up!" she calls back as she heads upstairs._

 _I just shake my head after her with a smirk and go to prepare myself. When I come into the bedroom, she's on the bed in more casual clothes, waiting for me._

 _"So what do you got?" she asks as she leans back on the mattress._

 _I sit down beside her and hold out a small box._

 _She gives me a curious look before opening it. Then she seems frozen in sheer amazement for a moment before she pulls out the contents: two bands made from cloths of Earth and Palaven._

 _"You mentioned how humans wear matching rings when they're married, so I went with it. I actually had EDI look into it briefly just to give me a better idea of what to do and she mentioned that some cultures use bands or ribbons to signify a deeper connection—"_

 _"…these are wolves." She's looking over the impressions in the bands, the contrasting colors forming intricate shapes of two certain Earth-native animals. "And the birds?"_

 _"Mourning doves," I answer, "Part of what I researched with EDI, seeing what all creatures 'mate for life.'"_

 _She smiles before sliding one band onto her wrist and handing me the other one. "So these can signify that we're bound to each other…"_

 _"…and if something ever happens to one of us, we have something to hold onto to remind us we're still together…to the end of our days."_

 _She smiles, leaning over to kiss my scars. "I'd say you're getting better at the romantic gestures." She looks down at the band around her wrist as I pull the other onto my own. "Great. Yours is all symbolic and poetic and mine's…" She trails off, tucking her hair behind her ear as if she's uncomfortable with her own decision._

 _"What?" I finally ask her._

 _She brings herself to meet my eyes. She simply looks at me for a moment, slowly sending us both into that overwhelming need for each other. Finally, she smiles and moves closer to me. "Mine's more physical." Then she wraps her arms around me and kisses me._

 _I fall into her, let my feelings for her once again take over my actions. For the first time since Omega-4, we commit ourselves to this_ completely _, give in to each other with no reservations—not because we know our lives are close to ending but to join our lives together._

 _As if in response to that thought, I'm pulled back from her by a pressure on my wrist and I find when I look down at it that she's actually tying it to her own. "Uh, Sara?"_

 _She simply smirks. "The older human marital rites sometimes involved the bride and groom having their wrists tied together for the duration of the ceremony. I thought something similar might have a stronger effect if we…"_

 _"…consummated it instead?" I realize._

 _Her smirk gradually fades into a genuine smile. "Yes."_

 _I smile back. "No objections here." Then I fall back into it, holding her close to me as she tightens the bindings on our hands to where our pulses pound against each other stronger with every second. We finally fall back onto the bed entirely, completely lost in each other. It's a bit harder to move with our hands locked together this way, but neither of us care. We merely turn our hands to intertwine them…and keep our focus elsewhere._

 _The next week has to be the best of my whole life. We spend every second together. I don't even care when she winds up roping me into watching a bunch of those old human vids with her. For that matter, it's kind of hard to have a problem with it when complying results in her curling up against me, laying her head on my shoulder, and wrapping her arms around me as I hold her close. When the week is almost over, she shares my disappointment. Then she locates her bow and my sniper rifle and suggests we finish our alone time doing what we do best together. The result is three consecutive matches in the combat simulator (Sara's use of archery instead of typical gunplay raises some suspicions, but no one seems willing to act on them once they see her in action in the first round)._

 _"Hey!" a familiar voice calls as we step out from the last match, a split second before she can take my hand. James stands off to the side. "You broke my high score again!"_

 _Sara breaks into laughter. "Face it, Lieutenant. You've met your match."_

 _"Well, yeah, I knew that much after Ilium—"_

 _"_ Thin ice, Vega _…!"_

 _He backs off there. "Alright, Lola, I get it. Are we heading out or what?"_

 _Sara sighs, shaking her head. "Fine." Then she puts her bow away and follows him out._

 _I take her side, taking her hand once I'm close enough. "You know, you are still in charge. We can do this again whenever you want."_

 _She simply smiles. "Yeah, I know."_

 _For the next several months, we stay on the_ Normandy _together, occasionally taking some time off at the apartment. No major galactic crisis comes, so it seems our intervention might not be necessary anytime soon. Seeing this, she has no regrets when the first anniversary of our wedding comes and she spontaneously gives the whole crew another week of shore leave. We haven't exactly been deprived of each other's company for the past year, but having the next week completely alone again is…well, perfect._

 _Near the end of the week, Sara and I are walking through the lower area of Kithoi Ward, what's basically considered the slums._

 _"Losing your touch for finding a good view, are you?" I remark._

 _Sara scoffs. "Let's just say all this jumping around the galaxy with nothing to do has left me antsy. And this part of town reminds me of the old days."_

 _At that last part, I find myself aching to bring her in again. Over the past four months, she's told me quite a bit about her life before her enlistment. From what I understand, she's barely mentioned any of it to anyone else since her 18_ _th_ _birthday, not even to Anderson. And from what I've heard so far, I can understand why. But I can also sort of understand why she'd be the least bit nostalgic here like she was back in Los Angeles. Those thoughts running through me, I start to move closer to her—_

 _The sound of a crash makes us both stop moving._

 _"What was that?" I instantly ask._

 _Sara looks down an alley to the source of the noise, but neither of us can see it from here. "Go check it out, I'm gonna sneak around."_

 _Before she's even on her way to intercept, I head through, straight to the disturbance. Just like moving through the slums at all reminds her of her life on Earth, investigating this way reminds me of my days in C-Sec. So much so that I'm prepared to reach for a sidearm until I remember we left our guns at the apartment. Knowing this, I move carefully until I get close._

 _Right when I reach the end of the alley, something runs past it, followed by three people. I step out behind them seconds before they come to a stop. The first something only stops when the others catch it. Once they aren't moving, I can tell that the three people are some of the lowlifes that have gotten good at evading C-Sec. And the smaller creature they're chasing is a young human boy. It only takes a few seconds to hear the problem—the kid stole something from them and they were less than happy about it. Thief or no thief, that's still a kid over there. I don't need Sara steering my moral compass to tell me the appropriate response. First, though, I take a quick second to look for her. I see her on top of a nearby building. When she catches sight of me, she signals me to move first._

 _So I let my Archangel instincts come through long enough to jump in. "Hey!" At the very least, I catch their attention._

 _"Back off!" one of the thugs (I'm guessing black market dealers) snaps, "We've got business with this little—"_

 _That's when Sara drops in. Literally. She outright jumped off the roof she was on, using one of the thugs as a landing pad. The impact knocks him out entirely, leaving her to jump the next one from behind. She kicks his legs out from under him and throws him to the ground. When the last one attempts to jump her in return, she ducks under his blow and, on the way back up, knees him in the gut, grabs his arms and neck, and slams his head into the nearest wall._

 _I look at all the bodies she just dropped—none of them dead, but close enough. "Well, what did you need me for?"_

 _"You distracted them and got them into position," she points out. Then she turns to the little boy left standing there, shrinking back from her in something akin to fear. "Hey…" She kneels down beside him. "…you're OK. It's over. What happened? Why were they after you?"_

 _The boy simply looks at one of the thugs in question._

 _Sara turns to inspect him…and pulls out a small red fruit. "All this over an apple?!" She groans, running a hand through her hair. "Alright. The trick isn't to not get caught. It's to make sure someone else gets caught. You don't wait until they're not looking and take your chances, you time it so that they think the next person walking by snatched it, then take it while their attention's occupied."_

 _The boy slowly opens up to her. "…that works?"_

 _"Are you kidding? I invented that trick." Then she hands him the apple. "And in the future, kid? Never steal something from someone you can't outrun."_

 _I smirk at the exchange. Orphan to orphan. But when Sara steps back from the boy to let him look over the apple, I take her side. "Sara…" I pull her off to the side a short ways, close enough to keep an eye on him while still out of his earshot. "…you and I both know he won't last on his own out here that long."_

 _"Well, maybe there's some shelter or something nearby we could—" she starts._

 _"How old would you say he is?"_

 _She looks him over. "Four, or at least a couple months from it."_

 _I sigh. "Because that means he's already a duct rat."_

 _Sara stops then. As much as she despises the term, she was a street rat on Earth. She knows what it means. "…we can't let that happen."_

 _"Then what do you suggest we do?"_

 _She doesn't respond. She keeps her eyes on the boy, silently considering what to do. When I turn my attention entirely to her, though…I see that her right hand is coming to rest on her abdomen. Where we would've been having a child of our own by now if we'd been able to get biology to cooperate like we planned._

 _That makes me see what she's truly thinking. "Sara…"_

 _She turns her gaze to me, letting me see the rage of emotions in her eyes. "…what else can we do?"_

 _I turn to look at the three-year-old one more time. In my experience, he'll last maybe three or four more years before something happens. That's if he gets lucky. If he doesn't, he'll run into an accident in the ducts within the next two weeks. He needs refuge from a life like this. And Sara and I both know no shelter or orphanage on the Citadel will be able to give him what he really needs: someone who's genuinely looking out for him._

 _He needs a family._

 _I look at Sara again. The look in her eyes tells me that she actually wants this. That makes me realize…some part of me does, too. So I don't give myself a chance to start thinking it over and talk myself out of it before I tell her "Alright."_

 _She responds with a soft smile before turning to look at the boy. "So…how do we do this?"_

 _"For starters, we need to make sure he's OK with it, too."_

 _She nods and steps over to him. When she's close enough, she gets on her knees beside him again. "Hey, kid." Once he's facing her again, she smiles gently, carefully reaching out to touch him. "What's your name?"_

 _He looks at her for a moment, as if pondering whether or not to give an answer, before he decides to say it: "…Hunter."_

 _Suffice to say, we don't come back to the apartment alone. Neither, for that matter, do we go back onto the_ Normandy _alone the next day. The crew seem to be at varying levels of shock and confusion when Sara and I are the last ones back on board and a three-year-old tags along. Joker manages to make a few snide comments before Sara explains the situation. EDI, naturally, has little trouble with the adjustment, but virtually everyone else thinks this'll take some getting used to. Oddly enough, Hunter takes to the subdeck in engineering where Jack used to be. Guess what little time he's spent on his own has gotten him used to tight, dark spaces. Having him onboard starts to seem normal after a while and the crew even seem to get used to him. By the time he turns four, he really is part of the family. Still, it's only when, two days after his fourth birthday, I wake up to find him curled up between me and Sara that it really hits me._

… _we…actually have a son._

 _Smiling at the thought as I get out of the bed, I keep my eyes on Sara and Hunter still asleep together before stepping aside. When I come back into the room, they're both awake._

 _"…I know from experience," Sara is saying when I come into earshot, attempting reassurance, "It's gonna get better."_

 _Hunter barely moves. He seems scared. …and, of course, he is. Because the only reason he would've gotten up in the middle of the night and come up three decks to crawl into bed with us both would be that he had a nightmare. "What if it happens again while you're not here?"_

 _Sara takes a moment to consider this. Then she seems to brighten with an idea. She brings herself to her feet, tossing the covers aside, and steps over to the wall. "I'm about to show you something I have only ever shown to one other person in the entire galaxy." She then proceeds to pry open a loose panel in the floor and pull out what lies inside: the "teddy bear" she always carried around until she was eight years old. The one person she showed it to was me, of course, back when she was having the nightmares, making some joke about how it was her only true friend until she joined the_ Normandy _. Joking or not, what she tells Hunter now is the truth. "When I was your age, this helped me when I was scared. Take it."_

 _Hunter carefully takes the toy animal and looks it over. "Thank you."_

 _I smile at this, too. Yeah. Sara is definitely his mother._

 _Taking him in starts to seem more and more like one of the best decisions we've ever made together—aside from our decision to get married, it's probably_ the _best. But a few months before he turns five, Sara starts to seem a bit more concerned. I finally pull her aside at one point to ask what's bothering her and she winds up falling into what she'd probably call, were she currently her typical snarky self, "a maternal panic."_

 _"We've had to keep him off deck 5 since we first brought him onto the ship," she says, "And out of the battery, which is unfortunate as is since that's where you spend a lot of your time. Daniels and Donnelly have started making jokes about having to babysit him when he comes up into their space, which is on the same deck he's been essentially living in—"_

 _"Sara, what are you getting at?" I finally cut in, seeing where this is going._

 _She takes a second to level her breathing before forcing herself to say it out loud: "Maybe a warship isn't the best place to be keeping a five-year-old."_

 _"By that logic, it's an even worse place to keep a four-year-old, but we got through that just fine."_

 _"That—" Sara sighs, grabbing her hair. "I know. It's not just that." She looks over to the mess hall, where Hunter is sitting right now. "What if we go out on a mission someday and something happens to us? Where does that leave him?"_

 _As much as I don't want to think about it, I basically have an answer just by seeing Dr. Chakwas talking to him. "He's still got the whole crew looking out for him. He might not need us—"_

 _"No! I mean, yes, he'd still have someone to watch him and all, but he'd be an orphan_ twice _. Believe me when I say once is more than enough."_

 _That's when I understand what she's really trying to say. "…Sara?"_

 _She hesitates to say it. But one more look at Hunter cements what she already knows: "Maybe it's time we cash in on those retirement plans."_

 _I sigh, leaning back against the wall. I knew this day would come eventually. Since I got her back, I was definitely looking forward to it. But now, I can't deny that I wish there was some other way. We'd be leaving the_ Normandy _behind if we made this call now. Calling this our home this whole time, though… I shake it off. We have Hunter to think about now. That's altered every variable. "Where would we even go?"_

"I believe Liara may be able to help with that," EDI suddenly cuts in.

 _Sara and I exchange looks for a second before heading to the XO office._

 _"Yes," Liara says when Sara explains the situation, "I was planning to tell you this for your second anniversary, actually, but if you need to know now…"_

 _"What is it?" Sara asks, leaning against her console._

 _Liara moves around her and calls up a specific file in her database. As a result, every monitor on her wall shows a different planet._

 _"…wow."_

 _Liara smirks. "These are all out-of-the-way planets and moons with habitable atmospheres, selected to your specifications."_

 _"Someplace warm and tropical?" I find myself smirking with her._

 _"That was my understanding of your plan, yes. Say the word and I can put the wheels in motion. Ashley, EDI, and I have protocols in place to ensure the_ Normandy _is taken care of in your absence, though it seems unlikely the Alliance will reassign it anytime soon, if only in honor of its original CO."_

 _Sara looks over the monitors in what I can only describe as awe. "You mean you could just set us up on any of these?"_

 _"Yes. Several of these haven't even been colonized yet, but my agents could set up supply lines."_

 _"You thought of everything, huh?"_

 _"That is my job."_

 _Sara simply gives her a brief smile before looking over our options._

 _"Of course," Liara continues, "if you would simply wish to devote your time to Earth or Palaven or even entirely to the Citadel, I can also make arrangements to ensure you—" She then notices something. "…Sara?"_

 _I look over at Sara myself, finding that she's stopped moving. I step over curiously._

 _Sara takes a few seconds before reaching her hand out to one of the monitors. "Where's this one?"_

 _I turn to see what she found. A garden world about the size of Mars. Just by looking at it, I can see why it caught her eye. There's plenty of green and the water seems to glisten._ Kind of like her eyes.

 _"It's in the Petra Nebula," Liara answers, "The system was only just discovered two or three years ago by an Alliance surveillance probe. The Alliance has made some initial landings, but it's far from being made into a colony. It hasn't even gone past its classification to an actual name yet. The_ system _hasn't even been named yet."_

 _Sara keeps her eyes on the display. I know that look._

 _So I smile and step back. "All yours."_

 _She looks back at me for a second before truly considering. I've essentially just told her to decide where we're going to spend the rest of our lives together, but, well… Finally, she turns to Liara. "I take it that if I were to choose this one, we'd actually have someplace to live there?"_

 _Liara gives her a look. "Please. I wouldn't taunt you with the suggestion if it wasn't a true option. I could have you set up within a month. Three weeks if you wanted to make any adjustments of your own."_

 _Sara looks at the monitor for a moment longer…and smiles. "Do it."_

 _So the next few weeks are spent preparing. When our second anniversary does come, it's met with the news from Liara that we can leave whenever we're ready. We're there by the end of the day, but Sara, quite clearly, shares my hesitance to leave the ship. In fact, from the way she winds up running her hand along the galaxy map, I'd say she wants to leave even less than I do._

 _Still, she gives Ashley a friendly smile and says it: "Take care of her."_

 _Ashley smiles back. "We will."_

 _So the two of them hug and Sara prepares to leave the_ Normandy _behind. It seems like every member of the crew is determined to take at least a full minute with each of the three of us before we can leave the ship at all, but it's probably for the best. The delay means that the first thing we see when we step onto the planet itself is the sunset._

 _Sara, naturally, is the first one into the house Liara had set up for us. "Wow. Liara's people sure know what they're doing."_

 _I smile as I take her side, looking over the place for myself. It is pretty nice._

 _Sara turns to inspecting the rooms within two minutes. She almost instantly signals to Hunter which one is his, to which he almost instantly moves to settle into it. Smirking at the sight, Sara then turns to what can only be the "master bedroom," as she calls it. "Wow," she observes, "So this is for you and me."_

 _"You don't exactly sound thrilled," I comment._

 _She sighs. "…guess I just miss the_ Normandy _already."_

 _I can certainly understand that. So I step over to her, placing a hand on her shoulder. "It's still your ship. And who knows? …maybe we'll go back someday."_

 _She smiles at the thought. "Yeah. Maybe." Then she sits down on the bed already in place at the center of the room and looks around. "…huh."_

 _"What?"_

 _"Nothing, it's just…I've just gotten used to sleeping under the stars."_

 _I look up at the ceiling over the bed. Solid. It's not likely for us to see any stars through it anytime soon. Still…that gives me an idea. That night, when Sara is testing out the shower, I call Liara. After the initial banter about the fact that I'm calling almost immediately after leaving the ship, I briefly thank her for all the trouble she went to for us and tell her that there is one small change I'd like to make during the first supply run. For the first three nights, Sara gets used to turning her focus to me. When she's out playing with Hunter during the first supply run, though, I make that change I was talking about. Once she comes back, I pull her into our room and throw her onto the bed. She takes one look up, sees the multi-colored atmosphere through the skylight over her head, and beams with joy. I've barely started to ask her what she thinks before she grabs me by the arm and yanks me onto the bed beside her, wrapping her arms around me to kiss me. That night, as she lies on the bed beside me, she looks up at the stars until she falls asleep. And I keep my eyes on her until I follow her._

 _The next year is filled with moments like that. When we first discover the nightly appearance of a spectra in the sky, which leads her to christen the planet Aurora. The night Hunter has trouble falling asleep and Sara lays him down on our bed, forming constellations with him before she even realizes it. The day Hunter asks Sara to show her how the bow she keeps by her bed works and she winds up giving in to my prodding to demonstrate her best trick shots. It's better than I would've imagined it. Our third anniversary, when it finally comes, promises to solidify that. Until, two hours before midnight, I receive a call from the hierarchy that Primarch Victus needs me on Palaven for the next few days. In all this, I'd almost forgotten I was still technically his advisor (for that matter, Sara is still technically a Spectre, though she's not been classified as active duty for the Council since her return anymore than she has been for the Alliance). Sara says she can handle things without me, but I'm still hesitant to leave._

 _Four days later, it starts to seem like the trip to Palaven might've been some kind of "twist of fate," as Sara sometimes calls it. Five seconds before Victus can tell me my services are no longer required, he receives word that two of his operatives were killed on a mission…and they left behind an 18-month-old daughter with no one left to take her. Hearing the news is enough to get me thinking again. I tell Victus to give me a minute and step out into the next room. Once I'm there, I call Sara._

"Garrus," Sara smiles as soon as the call goes through, "Please don't tell me you're calling to say there's some kind of delay or attack or something."

 _"Uh…yes and no," I answer. Then I explain to her what I just heard and what it means._

Sara instantly catches on. "Garrus…are you saying what I think you're saying?"

 _"If you think I'm saying we should take her in like we took in Hunter, then yes."_

She sighs, placing her head in her hand. "Garrus, I…I don't know about this."

 _"It's no different than what we did for Hunter—"_

"Yes, it is! Hunter had perfect timing, running into us right before he turned four. You're talking about taking in a _baby_."

 _"We've faced down_ Reapers _. I think we can handle a one-year-old."_

"You have heard the human term 'terrible twos,' right?"

 _"Sara, I think we both know you're not worried about having a toddler around."_

She hesitates. But she knows I'm right. "…I'm not sure I can do this. There's too much that could go wrong."

 _I wish she were right here so I could wrap my arms around her as I say it, but I have to settle for offering a look of assurance. "Sara, if you can handle me, you can do this."_

She smirks, though she doesn't respond otherwise.

 _"…biology's not gonna cooperate. After six years, we should know that, as much as we don't want to admit it. This might be the closest thing we can find. I've seen you with Hunter, you'll do just as well with this girl. We can do this together."_

She takes a moment to consider… "…we can do anything together." She looks at me, a familiar determination in her eyes. The same look she had that day in the slums on Kithoi Ward. "Bring her home."

 _That's it then. After our conversation is over, I take the necessary measures. The process adds an extra day to my trip, but that at least gives me a chance to see Dad and Solana briefly before I head back. And when I do head back, I don't do so alone. Once I've gotten back to Aurora (we've got no other name for it and Sara seems pretty intent on keeping that one, so we've all taken to calling it that), Sara and Hunter almost immediately start asking what happened. In answer, I smile and hold out the turian girl for them to see._

 _Hunter takes it surprisingly well. "What's her name?"_

 _I look at her as Sara takes her. Unlike with Hunter, I've claimed her as my daughter in a matter of hours. From the look Sara's giving her, I'd say she's claimed her in a matter of seconds. I smile at the thought before I answer Hunter's question: "Her name is Kyla."_

 _Sara must've informed Liara of our new addition before I even got on my way home, because the next supply run from her agents includes everything a turian toddler would need. By the end of the week, Kyla has been moved into the room next to Hunter, who seems pretty fascinated with her. It seems like a perfect fit._

 _Until, of course, she wakes up crying at 4:00 a.m._

 _Sara groans as she gets up. "Welcome to parenthood."_

 _"I really hope this isn't gonna happen every night," I sigh as I start to get up with her._

 _"Be thankful she's not a newborn," Sara comments as she steps out the door and heads to Kyla's room, "It'd be not only every night, but_ every other hour _."_

 _I come out of the room right as Hunter comes out of his. "Is Kyla OK?" Hunter asks, despite plainly still being half-asleep._

 _"I think so," Sara answers as she takes Kyla into her arms, "Maybe she just had a bad dream."_

 _Hunter looks at her in consideration for a second. Then he heads back into his room. Before I can even question what he's up to, he comes back out with Sara's old bear. And hands it to Kyla._

 _Sara looks at this with a smile. "Good thought."_

 _Hunter smiles back, watching as Kyla curiously inspects the toy animal. Even when she starts to fall asleep again and Sara lays her back down, he keeps his eyes on her for a moment before heading back to his own room. Guess he's falling into the role of big brother after all._

 _Time goes by and this starts to seem natural. The life Sara told me she dreamed of for us is essentially coming true, even if not the way we planned it. I get used to it even. Sara seems to as well, just like she "gets used to" the attacks that she once suffered through, which, at this rate, will be unnoticeable to her after only another year or two. We could actually spend the rest of our lives like this, with no threat of anything getting in the way. If Sara has any regrets, they seem to be taken care of by the fact that our old crewmates drop in for Hunter's sixth birthday. On the_ Normandy _._

 _"Did you steal it again?" Sara nudges Joker as they come out._

 _"Alliance still hasn't designated it as being under anyone's command but yours," Joker answers, "So technically, if it's stolen, it's because we took it back to Earth without you in the first place."_

 _"You are always welcome to return to command," EDI points out._

 _"That might be a bit more difficult given present circumstances," Sara counters with a nod in Kyla's general direction._

 _Apparently, Liara didn't inform all of them about the turian girl's adoption, because most of them seem pretty surprised to find her here. Tali is the first one to ask to see her, followed by Liara herself, and Jack and Wrex spend the next ten minutes making jokes about our current situation, James and Ashley following suit even if to a lesser extent, as Miranda, Jacob, Samara, and EDI all offer encouragement and support. Grunt, on the other hand, is busy trying to keep Hunter entertained (the result of which mostly serves to amuse Sara and Joker more than anything else). About an hour later, Hunter brings out Sara's bow and tries to talk her into another demonstration of her skill with it. She starts trying to talk him out of it, briefly, but everyone else is almost instantly on his side. So Sara sighs, retrieves her quiver, and goes outside to the makeshift targets she set up months ago for these "practice sessions." When her initial shots lead to prodding from several of the others, she takes it as a challenge and winds up showing off some trick shots I didn't even know she could do. After she goes so far as to finally show us that her claims about being able to aim blindfolded are_ accurate _, James comes in to say that Ash's constant jabs at her calling her a "showoff" were true and starts trying to demonstrate he can do just as well with his gun. When Jack sees Hunter's amused reaction to the standoff, she smirks and cuts in herself by briefly demonstrating her biotics on James, causing Sara to jump back and burst out laughing before several of the others jump in and start an all-out civil war._

 _Even during the party on the Citadel all those years back, we didn't get to cut loose and enjoy our time together like this (mostly because of the pressures of a war going on around us, I suppose). It…it just feels right._

 _Eventually, some of the others say it's almost time for them to head out. At that, Joker and EDI suggest we take the_ Normandy _for one last ride. Sara's delighted reaction is immediate, making it clear that the answer is "yes" and not up for debate. Not that anyone, least of all Hunter, is ready to argue. The resulting ride is only about two hours long, but it's enough. Sara gets to have a brief reunion with the rest of the crew and even introduce some of them to Kyla as well as show the turian toddler the ship we once called home. Hunter certainly seems glad to be back on the ship after all this time (even if the crew still have to work to keep him out of the areas where the weapons are…), but Sara seems like she's come home. Like she always says, "home is where the heart is." It's kind of hard seeing us all go our separate ways again after that. And seeing the_ Normandy _fly away again once we're back on Aurora. But Joker's parting comment that "this is obviously not the last time we're actually gonna do this" holds any regrets at bay._

 _"Why can't we do that all the time?" Hunter asks that night as Kyla is falling asleep._

 _"Well," Sara sighs, sitting down on his bed with him as she tries to explain, "they all have important things they need to be doing. They're…watching over the galaxy for us."_

 _Hunter looks at her curiously. "Why can't you?"_

 _That's a bit harder to answer. "…because we're taking care of you and Kyla and…"_

 _"…and…" I take Hunter's other side, "…we've already done what we can for the galaxy."_

 _That certainly piques Hunter's interest. Apparently, we haven't told him as much of the story as we thought. "Really? What happened?"_

 _Sara looks at me, considering how to handle this._

 _I simply smile and nod, telling her to go ahead._

 _She thinks that over for a moment before nodding in agreement and turning to Hunter with a smile. "It's a…really long story."_

 _"We don't have to do the whole thing tonight," I point out._

 _Sara agrees with that. "Alright." So she turns her attention entirely to Hunter and starts into it: "You know I was an orphan like you, right? Well, when I turned 18, I joined the Alliance military…" The next ten minutes are spent explaining how we both wound up investigating what happened on Eden Prime (she noticeably skims over most of what happened on Akuze, but it's pretty obvious why so I leave it alone for now). Right when she's about to tell him about the_ Normandy _, he falls asleep. She smiles at this before carefully laying him down in the bed and leaving the room._

 _I follow her, closing the door. Three hours later, I'm sitting outside with her, watching the "aurora" light the sky. Ever since we came here, this has been a personal tradition, to watch midnight go by from here. This time, moments before midnight, she curls up against me. Ten seconds after midnight goes by, her breathing starts to slow down and I realize why: it's been a long day and she's already starting to fall asleep. So I quickly get up, helping her to her feet, and bring us inside._

 _Sara sighs as she falls back on the bed, looking up at the aurora and the stars around it through the skylight, the three moons currently out of view. "…this has been the best year of my life."_

 _I smile as I take her side and lie down with her. "Mine, too."_

 _She lays her hand on mine, keeping her eyes on me. Then suddenly a soft blue flash strikes through her eyes and she flinches back, tensing considerably for a split second._

 _I quickly reach for her. "Are you OK?"_

 _She catches her breath and nods. "Yeah. I'm fine."_

 _I still move the hand she took hold of and wrap it around her. But, this time, it's not because of the attack._

 _She smiles, keeping her eyes locked on mine. "Stay with me?"_

 _I reach my free hand up to smooth her hair back from her face. "Always."_

 _She leans into me, slowly reaching to wrap her arms around me as well. "Never let me go?"_

 _I smile… "Never." …and kiss her._

 _We fall into each other again. This is right where we belong. Together._

Suddenly, a knock on the door sounds, waking me up.

Sara groans and gets up to answer it. "What now?"

I sigh and get up after her. "Well, count up how many people live here and I think you can take a guess."

Sure enough. When the door opens, Hunter is standing there.

Sara smiles as she gets to eye-level with him. "What is it, Hunter?"

"Kyla's calling you," he answers.

Sara is as confused by that answer as I am. "Calling for me?" She quickly heads into Kyla's room.

When I get there, Kyla is already smiling at Sara— "Mama!"

Sara stops moving from shock, only snapping out of it when Kyla holds her arms out to her.

"Well, this is a historic event," I smirk.

"Our adoptive daughter claiming me as her mother?" Sara inquires.

"No, Sara Vakarian rendered speechless."

"Shut up."

 _That night…_

I sit outside the house, looking up at the stars as I think over the day. Besides Kyla's acceptance of us as her parents, there was Solana's following call with the announcement of her engagement, the brief moment of romantic action Sara and I managed to find before Hunter and Kyla cut us off, hearing her sing for Kyla… What is it Joker says when he calls us? "Just another day in paradise?" …yeah, I guess it is.

I look out at the horizon. I can just barely see clouds stirring what must be several miles away. I smile at the thought of the first time we saw those here. The first time after our arrival that it rained on "Aurora."

 _Hunter was already asleep. Sara and I were sitting outside, just talking._

 _Sara glanced around at the area surrounding us. "Liara made sure all the environmental data on this place was up to date, right?"_

 _"As much as she could get it," I answered, "Though I think she may have hidden some extra scanners around here somewhere."_

 _"Well, I wouldn't be surprised."_

 _I looked at her. "Why are you asking? Worried there's something toxic around here?"_

 _She visibly tensed there._

 _That alone made me worry. "…Sara?"_

 _She hesitated. "…no, I'm not worried about me." She took a moment. I let her, knowing better than to try prying at something she probably didn't wanna talk about. But she still came out with it: "…one of the first things the Shadows did after I was intact was to hyper-modify my immune system. Got it working as high as it could go so I didn't get sick or anything when I was supposed to be out killing stuff. I mean, I'd already built up a tolerance to most diseases a human could contract, but dying twice has a way of setting you back, so…" She lost her words at that point._

 _In my head, I started trying to put together a reason for why this particular topic would bother her. I could see the advantages—never getting sick, possibly never getting poisoned—and the consequences—heightened allergic reactions (should she ever get any), increased difficulty if ever medical treatment required a blood transfusion. But the Shadows had done worse to her with hardly any sort of effect on her psychologically—_

 _"…I…" She sighed, running her hands through her hair briefly. "That's one change I can almost appreciate, but…I can't help but wonder sometimes if…maybe…biology hasn't cooperated…not because we actually are incompatible but…because I…I can't…" That's when her voice failed her entirely, forcing her to choke back the urge to let her eyes water for practically the first time since we took in Hunter._

 _That was enough to make me realize what the problem was. I'd actually heard of a few cases of hyperactive immune systems causing infertility, but to think she'd consider herself one…_

 _"Hey…" I placed my hands on either side of her face, turning her to face me. Slowly, I brought her closer…_

… _and two seconds before I reached her, it started raining._

 _I sighed, pulling back from her. "Well, that was unfortunate timing."_

 _She simply laughed. "No, 'unfortunate' requires a lot worse than this." She turned onto her feet and stepped farther out into the clearing as the light shower started to turn into a full rainfall._

 _As I got to my feet after her, I took a moment to watch her. The rain slowly turned her hair from its typical light red to the wholly_ red _color it took when it was wet. The tears plaguing the edges of her eyes were washed away entirely, leaving the green at their centers to light up again. And, of course, her clothes gradually grew damper, clinging to her body tight enough to expose the shape of every curve—_

 _I snapped myself out of it. But there was no denying how beautiful I knew she was and the effect that tended to have on me. So I moved over to her as she spun through the falling water, stopping once she was facing me. Once I was close enough, I took hold of her again, pushing her hair back from her face. "…you're perfect. Scars and all. I wouldn't change a thing."_

 _She smirked. "Funny…" She then reached up to softly press her hands to my scars. "…I've been meaning to tell you the same thing." After taking in my delighted reaction, she took hold of me the same way I was holding her and drew me in to kiss her._

 _When she pulled back, I moved without thinking, pressing one hand to her back and using the other to all but grab her hair. Then I pushed her over so that she fell back into my arms the same way she did at the top of the Presidium. And just like that day, I kissed her. With all my heart could give._

 _She smiled as we parted. "Yup. Still true." She glanced at the rain. "Better with a turian."_

 _I laughed while I helped her back to her feet. Then kept a hold on her hand while we went back into the house and she laid her head on my shoulder. Once we were almost to our room, though, she stopped moving. I stopped with her and turned to see what the problem was._

 _She was looking at Hunter's room._

 _I sighed. "Are you OK?"_

 _She simply kept her eyes on the door for another moment before smiling and turning to me, the gleam in her emerald eyes returned. "Yeah. I'm OK."_

I watch the clouds as that memory fills my mind. They're far enough away that, if they even come in this direction, any rain that falls won't until long after we're asleep. Every time it's rained here, I've been reminded of that night. The last time I ever saw her let what happened to us before we were married get to her. Having Hunter and Kyla around, not to mention that we're still together with nothing threatening us…that all has a way of making any bad memories seem light-years away.

"Enjoying the view?"

I smile at the sound of her voice, watching as she sits down beside me. "Glad I let you pick where to settle down."

She smirks. Then she reaches over and takes hold of my hand. "I'm just glad we got to at all." She turns to look at me. When her eyes meet mine, her smirk fades to a smile. "I've never been happier than I am with you."

I lose myself in her again. The light in her eyes, the feeling of her hair between my fingers, the way she clings to my hand…I couldn't imagine life without this. "The feeling's mutual."

Softly, her hand reaches my scars. I lean into it, silently telling her not to pull away. If the way she tightens her hold on my hand is anything to go by, I'd say she gets the message. "…there was one day, a few weeks before Earth fell, where I wondered what our lives would've been like if we'd never met." Her hand falls from my face then, coming to rest against my heartbeat instead. Just feeling her touch me makes my pulse rise, heightening the sensation she receives. "Then I remembered this, remembered Omega-4, and I couldn't bear the thought of living without you." _I_ clutch _her_ hand tighter at those words. I get it. I felt it for her every day during those six months we spent apart. "When the Shadows had me, I…I knew there was something missing, but I couldn't…" She sighs, her hand dropping from its position against me. "All this time, I thought I gave you my heart." Then her hand comes up to mine, prying it loose from her hair and pressing it to her chest to feel the rhythmic thump of her heartbeat. "You _are_ my heart."

I focus on our hands, clutching each other as tight as we can take. The feeling of her pulse echoing through my own is mesmerizing, like usual, enough to make me realize what I should've already known: "…and you're mine." I hold onto her hands, losing the will to face her as the truth comes free beyond my control. "Every time I lost you, it destroyed me. I just…" _…I just wanted to follow you._ Whether from loyalty and respect or from outright love, I wanted to stay with her through everything, no matter if it meant facing judgment from the Alliance or standing at the edge of my own imminent demise. As far as I was concerned, nothing was going to keep me from her. I still feel that way. But to think I couldn't—

"Ow!" The involuntary gasp snaps me out of it.

I pull back without thinking, letting go of her hands entirely. Only once I've let go do I realize how tight I was clutching them, how my hold grew stronger with every thought of a life without her in it. Tight enough that, if I'd kept going for three more seconds, my talons might've broken through her flesh. "Sorry."

She just shakes it off. Also like usual. "It's fine."

Deep down, something inside me is screaming _No, it isn't, I almost hurt you!_ That thought is what brings me to reach over and slide my fingers over her hands, feeling along the bones and tendons to make sure I didn't actually cause any significant damage.

She quickly pulls her hands back from me and uses them to force me to face her. She gives me a look that tells me all I need to know: _It's OK. You could never hurt me._ Then, with a playful smirk, she leans in and kisses me on the nose.

I can't hold back a small laugh as I push her hands away. That's my Sara.

With a sigh, she falls back against the ground. I follow her lead and lay down beside her. But as she watches the sky, I watch her. Her left hand rests over her abdomen as her right lays on the ground between us. Her light red hair is spread out beneath her as the aurora above us reflects in her eyes, lighting an entire spectrum through an already beautiful kaleidoscope of green. Caught up in the sight, I reach up to her, brushing my fingers across the side of her face. She takes in the sensation for a moment before taking hold of my hand again.

She then comes closer to me, laying her head against my shoulder. "Part of me misses the days when we were together just because we _needed_ to be."

I answer with a smile, wrapping my arm around her. "We still are. Just for better reasons." The look in her eyes tells me she knows that. But just looking at her now brings back the urge to show why. So I hold her hand against my heart and reach over to kiss her where I touched her only a few seconds ago. She responds by reaching over to kiss my scars like she did last night. Suddenly, we're lost in each other completely, love controlling our every motion, knowing nothing could break us apart.

That is, until thunder strikes, closer to us than the clouds on the horizon had appeared when we started.

I sigh. "We should probably go inside." I get back to my feet, helping her after me. After sneaking through the house to our room, though, I find myself pushed onto the bed with a strength that could only come from my _kalwen_.

She takes hold of me as we lie here together. "…I love you."

I answer with a smile, softly nuzzling her as I tell her "I love you, too." Then I fall into her entirely as we kiss.

The day I met her, I fell in love with a human named Sara Shepard. It took me far too long to realize that and even longer to act on it. But I always somehow knew that she was the best thing that ever happened to me. And through all that we've been through together, through geth attacks and suicide missions and extinction-level war and assaults by assassins, through every battle both physical and emotional, through every day we've been apart and every second we've been together, through it all one thing has stayed true: our love is unbreakable. Just as she loves me, I will always love her. Until the end.

* * *

And that is the end. Thank you so much for sticking with me this long and I sincerely hope you enjoyed this whole series. I will probably always look back on this one with fondness so I really do hope that you all appreciate it. Be sure to look out for more from me, because there certainly will be more coming. See you then. ;)


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